Minister confirms withdrawal of local job-seeker statistics

Employment Minister Mark Hoban has written to Diana Johnson MP confirming that monthly official statistics on the number seeking each job in local constituencies will no longer be available.

The Coalition Minister's letter tells the Hull North MP that "we are working towards" having "broadly similar data available to that under the previous JobCentre Plus vacancy system", but gives no guarantee about when such information will start to be available.

The letter follows Diana Johnson MP raising the issue in the House of Commons last Thursday (17 January).

The Hull Labour MP had learnt from the House of Commons Library that the Department of Work and Pension's (DWP) privatising of its 'Universal Jobmatch' service will mean that monthly statistics showing the number of job-seekers chasing each job vacancy in each UK Parliamentary constituency will no longer be available.

This started from the December 2012 jobs employment figures that were published today (23 January).

Recently these monthly official job-seeker statistics, obtained each month by MPs from the House of Commons Library, have shown that Hull North has the highest number of people chasing each job vacancy in the entire UK.

Today's official jobs figures merely showed that Hull North's unemployment in December 2012 was up slightly on the year, and at 12.4% is the 11th highest rate of unemployment in the UK. In December 2012 there were 15,267 people out of work across Hull.

Diana Johnson MP said: "The Employment Minister has confirmed to me that from this month, and for the foreseeable future, it will no longer be possible for MPs to obtain constituency statistics on the number of job-seekers after each job.

"These figures have been useful for journalists, economists and MPs in giving a snapshot of employment trends in local areas that are sometimes concealed within other wider figures.

"There is no legitimate reason for this information not to be provided and it seems all too politically convenient for the Coalition not to have these figures available as we debate joblessness, growth and regeneration issues.

"Curiously, in his letter Mark Hoban goes to some length to downplay the worth of these figures, while at the same time expressing an aspiration for the equivalent figures to be available again at some unspecified time in the future."