I also take a close look on UK employment figures, waiting anxiously for the Office for National Statistics (ONS) – UK’s statistic agency – to officially release the numbers. Despite no significant change, the unemployment figures are pretty much worrying.
UK’s statistics agency has just announced the monthly data related to unemployment. According to BBC, the UK’s unemployment rate rises to 7.9% from 7.8% last quarter, which means 23,000 more people lost their job, totaled 2.47 million of UK unemployment. April 2010’s average earning growth also fell down a bit to 1.9% from March 2010’s 2%.
The unemployment rate rises at record breaking pace, the highest since 1996.
I remembered 7 years ago looking for part-time jobs – students are not allowed to take full-time employment (I enrolled in University of Wolverhampton postgraduate program.) I must say that despite the already-issue-ridden UK job market, I could get a part-time job quite easily.
Well, not anymore, I guess…
ONS’ report, along with UK’s deficit reduction plan that could mean 725,000 job cuts by 2015, means that UK’s economic outlook is still pretty much bleak.
Related to the unemployment figures, U.K. consumer confidence also at a record low level in May 2010, the most drops since July 2008, dropped 10 points to 65 in May 2010, as reported by BusinessWeek. Britons are indeed becoming more pessimistic in their economic outlook.
What to do?
It’s pretty challenging to give any advice at this moment, but all I can say is that entrepreneurship (or shall I say, webpreneurship) can be a legitimate way out. There are people defying recession and raking in tens of thousands of dollars a month online, and new millionaires are born on daily basis.
So you might want to check our online business ideas and make money online articles to see what you can do to beat the negative trends.
Ivan Widjaya
On UK unemployment