Guernsey unemployment figures for September released

There were 444 people unemployed at the end of September, an increase of 9 on the August figure.

Of the 444, 18 were working on Community and Environmental Projects, 9 were participating in the Karabiner Scheme for young people and 1 was on a Kickstart programme with a local employer. A further 8 young people were attending Social Security’s new nine-week ‘Get into Woodworking’ course. Of the remaining 408 people, 123 had some part-time or casual employment.

This time last year, there were 440 people unemployed.

'Although the figure is about the same as last year, the last quarter has been encouraging’ says Deputy Dorey, Social Security Minister. ‘At the end of June we had 492 people unemployed, so it’s quite an improvement to be nearly 50 less than that in September.

‘We have started a new initiative by contracting with a professional recruitment agency, Prime Recruitment Ltd, to assist jobseekers in finding employment. This is a joint Social Security and Housing initiative and is on a six month trial basis. We believe that this new approach to matching jobseekers to vacancies will be welcomed
by both jobseekers and employers.

The recruitment specialists will work with employers to help them identify and shortlist jobseekers for interview.

They will also brief jobseekers on vacant positions, discuss applications and help to identify training needs of unsuccessful candidates.

The new process will include the recruitment specialists visiting some employers to discuss their staffing needs and also sitting in on some interviews in order to provide the unsuccessful candidates and employers with constructive feedback. The level of work being carried out by employers to fill particular vacancies will be shared with Housing so that it is taken into account when considering applications for short-term housing licences. It will also help the jobcentre supervisor to identify if any sanctions should be applied to the benefits paid to jobseekers.

Our own staff welcomes the experience of working with a recruitment agency.

To compare our figures with other countries the International Labour Organisation definition of unemployed should be used. This would result in our number of unemployed being 287 or 0.89% of the working population.’