Live Register Figures

I am going to try to increase the frequency of posts about unemployment. The Live Register figures are out today and I think these marginal dips are not something people should be getting too excited about, particularly given the overall trend toward longer unemployment durations. Constantin Gurdgiev gives a useful summary of the numbers on his blog. I hope that one outcome of the negotiations will be a more prominent concern for this issue, particularly addressing concern that failure to integrate into the labour market has lifetime consequences for young people and also that unemployment duration spells have scarring effects at all ages.