A letter to the Advertiser in response to their report today on the unemployment figures.
Why does the Swindon Advertiser insist on giving a completely misleading impression of the jobs crisis. It quotes 3,860 as “unemployed and claiming benefits”, a rate of 2.8%. This is only the number claimings Job Seekers Allowance.
The number of people unemployed is actually 7,900 which is 7.3%. This is from September last year. The redundancies from Honda etc have to be added to this so the real number is probably pushing towards 10,000. On top of that, of the 28,000 ‘economically inactive’, 7,000 are looking for work. Is it too much to hope that the Adver will give their readers the full picture?
Martin Wicks 