Key Economic Statistics, March 2009

The bulletin includes latest information from a range of sources and covers a variety of time periods. This bulletin updates the statistics previously released on 13 February 2009.

The key points from the latest release are:

The Labour Force Survey estimates for the 3 months to January 2009 show:

• The employment rate of people of working age in Wales was 70.0 per cent, down from 71.3 per cent in the same period a year earlier.  The UK average was 74.1 per cent.
• The ILO unemployment rate in Wales was 7.6 per cent of the economically active, up from 5.0 per cent in the same period a year earlier.  For the UK as a whole it was 6.5 per cent.
• The rate of economic activity amongst people of working age in Wales was 76.1 per cent, up from 75.1 per cent in the same period a year earlier.  The UK average was 79.4 per cent.

The claimant count rate in February 2009 for Wales was 5.0 per cent of the workforce, up 2.3 percentage points on February 2008 (UK rate 4.3 per cent).

The claimant count rate in February 2009 for West Wales and the Valleys was 4.5 per cent of the resident population of working-age.  The rate for East Wales stood at 3.9 per cent.

Other new information released this month is summarised below.

The Short Term Employment Surveys for the quarter ending December 2008 estimate that:

• Employee jobs in Wales fell by 18,000 (1.6 per cent) over the year to stand at 1.143 million.  UK employee jobs fell by 1.1 per cent over the same period to stand at 26.9 million.
• Employee jobs in manufacturing in Wales fell by 8,000 (4.9 per cent) over the year. Over the same period there were falls across most industries, the largest being in the service industries (down 14,000 or 2.7 per cent). There was an increase in education, health, public admin and other services (up 4,000 or 0.9 per cent).

The Index of Market Services for Wales for the four quarters to quarter 3 2008 fell by 0.4 per cent compared with the previous four quarters. The UK index rose by 2.2 per cent over the same period.

The value of exports of goods for the whole of 2008 from Wales rose by 18.7 per cent over 2007 and rose by 68.1 per cent over 1999.  Exports for the sum of UK countries and English regions rose by 11.5 per cent and rose by 44.5 per cent over the same periods respectively.

The detailed quarterly Labour Force Survey datasets on StatsWales (external link) were updated to include the new labour market information on 13 February 2009.

The monthly claimant count data is now available on StatsWales, please use the links below to access the data.

StatsWales website: Claimant count by local authority and economic region, Wales

StatsWales website: Seasonally adjusted claimant count by Government Office Region

StatsWales website: Seasonally adjusted claimant count by gender, Wales, UK

Contact

Tel: 029 2082 5017
E-mail: economic.stats@wales.gsi.gov.uk

Next update

24 April 2009