There is no doubt that rising unemployment is bad news. The cause is, however, largely due to public sector job losses rather than cyclical unemployment which had been driving the figures higher since 2008.
The loss of public sector jobs has had the surprising effect of raising female employment. The state sector employs more women than men and the loss of public sector jobs means that the number of women unemployed has risen sharply and increased as a proportion of the total.
The BBC article below points out some significant points in the figures and also graphs them. You should visit the BBC economy page here and look at their map of unemployment too.
Is this the start of the 'flattening out' of unemployment? Will the private sector at last start driving a recovery. All these and more questions to be answered in a future episode.
Well, the unemployment rose at least in November for about 0.1%, so I think there is a huge rush, but not that much behind. As you can read in the BBC article, part-time jobs rose more (59.000) than full-time jobs decreased (50.000). Of course it is still a problem and the unemployment rate, in the public as well as in the state sector, is still too high, but i dont think that will result a 'flattening out'.
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