Dole queues rise once again in the North West

It followed two positive months when the amount of people claiming the dole here decreased from 7.2 per cent to 6.8 per cent.

In Strabane the amount of dole claimants remained static at 6.9 per cent. Londonderry and Strabane have the worst dole queues in Northern Ireland.

Dole queues also lengthened in Limavady over the month from 6.4 per cent to 6.6 per cent.

Despite the marginal improvement over recent months the labour market in Londonderry will be affected by the announcement that 300 call centre staff at Stream are now out of work after the company failed to secure any new contracts, 115 workers at Arntz Belting are likely to lose their jobs and seven remaining employees at Raytheon Systems Limited will have to leave Londonderry if they wish to remain employed.

Some of these workers will now be forced to join the dole queues and this will have an effect on the figures in the coming months.

Figures for Northern Ireland as a whole for December 2009 recorded an increase of 500 in the number of unemployed claimants. This increase was larger than the previous monthly increase of 200, but was smaller than the average monthly increase of 1,500 during 2009.

Over the quarter there was a slight decrease in the overall unemployment rate regionally.

Enterprise Minister Arlene Foster said: "The latest economic output results for Quarter three, 2009 show that output from Northern Ireland's Production and Service sectors has remained relatively flat when compared to the previous quarter.

"These estimates represent an improvement on the large falls recorded during the height of the recession, but they also highlight the continued difficulties that sectors such as 'Engineering & Allied Industries' and 'Business Services & Finance' are facing.

"The economic recovery will be a gradual process and it may be some time before we see growth recorded across all sectors.

"I remain committed to assisting businesses through these difficult times and doing all that I can to ensure Northern Ireland is well positioned to take advantage of the opportunities that arise as we move out of recession.

"In that regard, I studied with interest the responses received in relation to the Independent Review of Economic Policy consultation. I will be making a statement to the Assembly next week outlining how I intend to respond to the recommendations of the Independent Panel's report."