The jobless map of Britain – The least and worst areas affected by unemployment in lockdown

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LUTON, Slough, Blackpool and Northampton have seen the biggest job losses since lockdown began and 600,000 are unemployed nationwide.

Shocking new analysis has mapped the extent of unemployment and the country’s worst and least hit areas – with Oxford, Cambridge and York suffering the smallest number of losses.

As many as three million people could lose their jobs

According to Centre for Cities, Luton was Britain’s worst hit city – with 6,560 people putting in new claims for unemployment benefits from March to May this year – a 4.9 per cent increase.

Slough had a similar percentage increase, with 4,610 new claims for benefits.

London came in as the 6th worst city for unemployment claims as more than a quarter of a million people in the nation’s capital put in fresh claims – an increase of 4.4 per cent.

In just the last month, 4,150 people in Luton, 3,970 people in Northampton and 2,650 people in Slough put in new claims for benefits.

Across the country there are now 2.7 million people claiming unemployment benefits, an increase of 1.4 million from March to May.

Oxford, Cambridge and York were cities who escaped the worst of job losses – they all had increases of around 2.5 per cent in unemployment claims.

That still means 2, 505 people in Oxford, 2040 people in Cambridge and 3,265 people in York were forced to fall back on unemployment benefits since the start of the pandemic.

According to Centre for Cities, the worst job losses hit economically weaker towns and cities in the first months of lockdown.

But in the last month that damage has spread throughout the country, and places with stronger economies bore the brunt of job losses – showing the impact of the pandemic had taken longer to spread south.

The analysis comes after the Office for National Statistics released shocking new numbers showing at least 600,000 people had lost jobs nationwide.

Early estimates from the ONS suggest 163,000 people lost their jobs in May, on top of 449,000 the previous month.

The ONS explained the numbers suggested a 2 per cent fall in paid employees since the country went into lockdown on March 23.

More than 3.2 million people have claimed Universal Credit since the start of the lockdown, according to the ONS.

Manchester and Birmingham were also hit hard by unemployment numbers – with 60,540 and 59,135 new claims respectively.

Both had an increase of just below 4 per cent.

The Institute for Employment Studies expects the total jobless figure to mid-May will be between 2.6million and 2.8million.

IES chief Tony Wilson told HOAR: “If you rolled that forward to today I think that means there’s three million unemployed. I think it’s a given we’re at that level.

“That would be the highest unemployment we’ve had since the 1980s and it will be pretty close to the highest we’ve ever had.

“Young people dominate in a lot of the jobs that have been lost in the sectors that have been shut down.

“We also know that young people are often the last people to join and are the first people to be let go.”

“All told, we’re in the middle of a huge jobs crisis that’s going to be the story for the next five years or more.”

 

Did you miss our previous article…
https://www.hellofaread.com/politics/boris-johnson-scraps-foreign-aid-department-in-major-whitehall-shake-up/