The number of vacancies advertised through Dundee job centre has taken a dramatic dip compared with the same period last year.
Latest figures, compiled by the Office for National Statistics, show the volume of employers using Jobcentre Plus to find potential employees has fallen by almost 24%. According to the Department Work and Pensions (DWP) only 542 jobs were advertised last month a drop of 174 from January last year.
The revelation comes only days after youth unemployment in the UK reached a record high of almost one million. In Scotland around 40,000 young people currently claim jobseekers allowance (JSA).
A Department for Work and Pensions spokesman said that although the city had been hit with a fall in jobs advertised, other parts of the country enjoyed a rise.
“The facts are that there are 500,000 vacancies in the economy, with Jobcentre Plus taking on 10,000 new vacancies every working day,” the spokesman said. “The government is focused on restoring the economy and supporting private sector jobs growth.
“Later this year our new Work Programme will give people the tailored support they need to move them into these jobs and stay there.”
Jobcentre Plus is in the Wellgate Centre and provides a one-stop shop for those trying to find work as well as offer information on benefits, loans and grants. Despite the volume of employers using the centre decreasing and making it even harder for people to find work, there are encouraging signs that, nationwide, the labour market is beginning to recover.
Only last week UK ministers welcomed unemployment figures showing the market had stabilised after a difficult few months. Unemployment was shown to have fallen to 2.492 million from the 2.498 million published last month. There was also a sharp jump in vacancies to half a million across the country, the highest in two years.
Dundee Unemployed Support Centre (DUSC) says, however, the decrease in the number of local jobs being advertised through Jobcentre Plus is a major obstacle.
Harvey Duke, secretary and organiser at the DUSC, said, “Our members have been against the cutbacks for a number of months now. It is hard enough to get a job at the moment but these figures clearly prove it is getting harder and harder to find work.
“There has been quite a lot of bad press about the numbers of unemployed in the country but again these figures show the problem is not with them it is with the number of jobs that are being advertised.”