Unemployment drops 'by fraction' in county
Unemployment in Leicestershire has dropped by about one per cent.
The number of unemployed people in the county was 22,400 in September, compared with 22,647 the previous month.
During the same period, the number of job vacancies advertised through Job Centre Plus rose by 2,118 to 10,930 – an increase of 20 per cent.
Business experts said the uplift in vacancies was partly down to firms starting to recruit seasonal workers and a rise in activity in some industries.
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However, they warned certain types of companies were having difficulty finding staff and jobseekers were being put off applying for new jobs at out-of-town industrial parks because of the poor public transport links.
Max Boden, policy manager at Leicestershire Chamber of Commerce said: "Unemployment has gone down a fraction, but what jumps out at us is there is an awful lot of unmet demand for labour relative to people looking for work."
The chamber said the total number of vacancies was likely to be more than 30,000 because only a third of all jobs were advertised through job centres.
Mr Boden said a large number of the unfilled vacancies were HGV, forklift and crane-driving jobs, goods handling jobs and roles in the care industry.
He said: "Quite a lot of jobs in the transport and distribution network are based in the county at places such as Magna Park and off junction 22 of the M1.
"These are places that are not that easy to get to if you are not mobile and the public transport to these places is not always frequent enough to rely on."
Earlier this year, Marks & Spencer announced it would employ 1,000 people at its new warehouse in Castle Donington, which is close to junction 24a of the M1.
Mr Boden said: "There is also an unmet demand for home carers and care assistants."
He said the figures showed an increase in the number of call centre and sales rep jobs in the last month.
"We are expecting to see even more of an upturn because of seasonal work in the next lots of figures," said Mr Boden,
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