THERE is some comfort for the borough’s jobless as the number of unemployed people in Dacorum is slowly decreasing, according to the latest figures.
And the percentage of people in Dacorum claiming benefits is lower than the average for the rest of the region, and the whole of the country.
A total of 2,300 Dacorum people were recorded as claiming jobseeker’s allowance (JSA) in December, compared with 2,360 in November and 2,500 in August.
This translates as around 2.5 per cent of the borough’s population currently claiming JSA, compared with an average of 3.1 per cent across the east of England and 3.8 per cent nationally.
But the bigger picture shows that this is still up from December in 2010 when 2,105 people aged 16 to 64 – 2.3 per cent of Dacorum’s population – were claiming JSA, but down on December 2009 when the figure was as high as 2,575 people, a bumper 2.8 per cent.
But the trend points to the jobless total continuing to fall over the coming months.