Wales has UK’s highest jobless rate

WALES has the biggest unemployment rate of any UK nation, according to latest quarterly figures from the ONS, with the jobless rate at its most elevated level for nearly a decade outside of the pandemic.

- SION BARRY Business editor

The Welsh unemployment rate was up 1.4% to 5.7% in July to September. The rise was the biggest of any nation or region of the UK. In the UK as a whole, unemployment rose from 4.8% to 5%. The number of unemployed working-age adults in Wales is now 88,000, up 21,000 on the three months to June.

In England the unemployment rate was 5.1%, in Scotland 3.7% and in Northern Ireland 2.4%. Only in London, (6.5%) and the northeast of England (5.8%) was the level higher.

Wales also continues to have one of the lowest employment rates of any UK nation or region at 70.8% (1.1 million adults). For England it was 75.4%, Scotland 74.3% and Northern Ireland 71.4%. It was only lower in the northeast of England at 69%. For the UK as a whole, the employment rate was 75%.

The economic activity rate for Wales - those not actively seeking work including the long-term sick - was down by 0.1% in the quarter to 24.8%, which represents 482,000 adults ~ a number that would fill the Principality Stadium more than six times over.