Manufacturing job losses slow but labour market ‘fragile’

There were 2.6 million employee jobs in Britain's manufacturing industries in the three months to December 2009, down 199,000 on a year earlier but 13,000 better than the 212,000 annual job losses last reported. However, across the economy, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) said that the latest labour market figures confirmed 'extreme fragility'. Dr John Philpott, chief economic adviser at CIPD, said the figures showed that conditions in the UK labour market remained extremely weak and indicated that talk of the jobless rate having already peaked is premature. He went on: "The 3,000 fall in unemployment on the Labour Force Survey measure for the period October-December is miniscule and must be seen in the context of a corresponding fall of 12,000 in the number of people in work and a rise of 72,000 in the number of economically inactive people. The latter rise is due mainly to a jump in the number of students – highlighting the degree to which young people are turning to study to avoid the dole. "Most disappointing is the 23,000 January increase in the number of people unemployed and claiming jobseeker's allowance, which comes after a short period in which the claimant count has been falling. "Today's employment and unemployment figures confirm that the UK jobs market is still in an extremely fragile state."