Key Economic Statistics, May 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 24 April 2009.

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

• The employment rate of people of working age in Wales was 70.4 per cent, down from 72.0 per cent in the same period a year earlier.  The UK average was 73.6 per cent.
• The ILO unemployment rate in Wales was 7.7 per cent of the economically active, up from 5.4 per cent in the same period a year earlier.  For the UK as a whole it was 7.1 per cent.
• The rate of economic activity amongst people of working age in Wales was 76.5 per cent, up from 76.2 per cent in the same period a year earlier.  The UK average was 79.3 per cent.

The claimant count rate in April 2009 for Wales was 5.5 per cent of the workforce, up 2.7 percentage points on April 2008 (UK rate 4.7 per cent).

The claimant count rate in April 2009 for West Wales and the Valleys was 4.6 per cent of the resident population of working-age.  The rate for East Wales stood at 4.1 per cent.

Other new information released this month is summarised below.

The Index of Market Services for Wales for the whole of 2008 fell by 1.3 per cent compared with 2007. The UK index rose by 0.8 per cent over the same period.

The detailed quarterly Labour Force Survey datasets (external link) on StatsWales were updated to include the new labour market information on 15 May 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

19 June 2009