A number of people sent us links to an article in the Independent over the weekend that, titled “Exclusive: A4e and a £200m back-to-work scandal”, mentions the level of unemployment on the Isle of Wight.
The Indy, apparently relying on research by the Institute for Public Policy Research North, says that the Island has the second highest number of people chasing each jobs vacancy in the UK.
From the research we’ve done into it this morning, this doesn’t appear to be correct.
While it’s not a rosy picture for the Island, it’s not as bad as the Indy said.
Tenth highest level of competition in UK, say ONS
The latest figures from the Office of National Statistics has the Isle of Wight having the tenth highest level of competition for each job vacancy in the UK, not the second.
The Island sits behind Clackmannanshire; Wansbeck; Copeland; East Dunbartonshire; Lewisham; West Dunbartonshire; Eilean Siar; Hackney; Barrow-in-Furness.
Isle of Wight is certainly the highest ratio in the South East, nearly 20% higher than the next closest area, Hastings.
January – often unusually low jobs numbers
The Island’s January 2012 JSA figures are the highest they’ve been since the start of 2006, but this isn’t unusual during the first month of the year.
A look at the historic data highlights that January often has a very low number of job vacancies available on the Island.
January 2009 was highest ratio since 2006
Some of the ratios on the Island have been incredibly high – Jan 2009 being the most extreme with only 49 jobs vacancies available the ratio of people looking for work to jobs available being 64.4. This changed substantially the following month with 193 jobs being available, bringing the ratio down to 18.2.
By way of another example, January 2010’s ratio was 51.1, dropping to only 4.7 the next month, as jobs available changed from 75 to 818.
