Key Economic Statistics, September 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 14 August 2009.

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

• The employment rate of people of working age in Wales was 69.4 per cent, down from 71.8 per cent in the same period a year earlier.  The UK average was 72.5 per cent.
• The ILO unemployment rate in Wales was 8.1 per cent of the economically active, up from 5.6 per cent in the same period a year earlier.  For the UK as a whole it was 7.9 per cent.
• The rate of economic activity amongst people of working age in Wales was 75.8 per cent, down from 76.3 per cent in the same period a year earlier.  The UK average was 78.9 per cent.

The claimant count rate in August 2009 for Wales was 5.7 per cent of the workforce, up 2.4 percentage points on August 2008 (UK rate 5.0 per cent).

The claimant count rate in August 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 4.2 per cent.

The Short Term Employment Surveys for the quarter ending June 2009 estimate that:

• Employee jobs in Wales fell by 32,000 (2.8 per cent) over the year to stand at 1.122 million.  UK employee jobs fell by 2.6 per cent over the same period to stand at 26.5 million.
• Employee jobs in manufacturing in Wales fell by 15,000 (9.4 per cent) over the year. Over the same period there were falls across most industries, the largest being in the service industries (down 22,000 or 4.6 per cent). There was an increase in education, health, public admin and other services (up 4,000 or 0.8 per cent).

The value of exports of goods for the for quarters up to and including quarter 2 2009 from Wales rose by 8.4 per cent over the previous four quarters and rose by 60.4 per cent over 1999.  Exports for the sum of UK countries and English regions fell by 0.4 per cent and rose by 36.8 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 17 September 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

16 October 2009