339 more people join ranks of the unemployed locally

A TOTAL of 339 more people are 'out of work' in the Ballymoney and Moyle area compared with last year, depressing new official figures reveal.

The statistics show that Ballymoney is showing an economic downturn by registering a 25.6% increase in the number of people claiming unemployment benefit.

The figures illustrate that in February 2010 there were 968 people without a job in Ballymoney Borough, an increase of 197 on the same month in 2009. It was also revealed by the Statistics Research of the Department of Enterprise, Trade & Investment that 5.2% of the jobless people were of working age.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Of the 968 people in Ballymoney Borough, 790 are males and 178 females.

The number of people unemployed in the Ballymoney Borough increased by 3.4%, or 32, compared to the jobless total for January 2009.

Meanwhile in the Moyle Council area they reported a jobless rise of 326.1% between February 2009 and 2010 - up 142 people to 687 people.

Of these 6.8% were of working age with 533 being men and 154 females.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The number of people unemployed in the Moyle rose by 3%, or 20, compared to the jobless total for the previous month.

However, on a happier note, both Moyle and Ballymoney are two of only three councils to have unemployment below 1,000.

REDUNDANCIES

The newly released figures also revealed that 40 people were made redundant in the Ballymoney area in the last 12 months, with none in Moyle.

A spokesperson stated: "There were 4,091 confirmed redundancies in Northern Ireland over the year to 28 February 2010, an increase of 26% compared to the same period in the previous year (3,258).

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

"Of these. 141 confirmed redundancies took place during the calendar month of February 2010 and 161 in the previous month of January 2010. This compares to 474 in February 2009.

"The largest number of redundancies occurred in Belfast (1,332), Derry (651) and Craigavon (289) District council areas."

Related topics: