The dole queue - getting longer or not?

By Ian Pollock
BBC News Online personal finance reporter in Northampton

Plenty of job ads to browse through

Tell anyone in Northampton that unemployment in the town has gone up by 21% this year and you will get a look of mild bemusement.

But, according to official statistics it has one of the fastest rising unemployment rates in the UK.

Despite this dubious claim to fame, the town appears to have jobs galore - it's full of recruitment agencies and the local paper is crammed with job adverts.

Last Thursday's edition of the Chronicle and Echo contained 20 pages of ads for all types of staff: clerical, administrative, industrial, warehouse, and professional.

"People are taking longer to take that recruitment decision than they did two years ago," says Marcia Mitchell, the paper's advertising manager

"Business is tougher, but year-on-year our (job) advertising is probably level."

Good links

The town's position in the middle of England close to motorways makes it a centre for distribution depots for big retailers.

And recent legislation curtailing the working hours of drivers has created a national shortage.

Kevin Clark can offer work to 40 more drivers

According to Kevin Clark of the recruitment agency Drivers Direct, anyone with an HGV1, HGV2 or 7.5 tonne driving license is very much in demand.

"They are hard to come by at the moment. There are lots of vacancies," he says. "We've got 40 drivers out a day. If we had 80 we could get 70 or 80 out each day."

Jobless claims

Down at the job centre in Lower Mounts, there are 1,429 vacancies for the 2,833 people in the town currently claiming job seekers allowance.

That's nearly 500 more claimants than in January this year.

It's a busy office and a steady stream of people pass through during the day - on the face of it there should be plenty of jobs to choose from.

There are plenty of jobs around, it's a growing market Hellie Baxter, Interaction Recruitment

One job seeker, Michael Nalder, has been signing on since August.

But he says it's not overly easy to get a job that suits him.

"I'm looking at working in a warehouse, at nights, but they tend to be in the county not the town," he says.

"Some jobs offer £5.50 to £6.50 an hour. Before I was doing bar work, and working for an agency - and I was getting £9.00 an hour in retail security. It kind of hurts when you get offered £5.50."

Inside, the job centre's business development manager Ian Palmer says one factor is that there hasn't been any large scale recruitment in the town this year.

For instance, a year ago the logistics firm Wincanton took on hundreds of staff locally for a new depot:

"The picture across the county is still very rosy, only 1.8% unemployment in the county," he explains.

"Across the other side of the county, in Kettering and Corby, we still have large scale recruitment - for instance for Morrison's who are recruiting 1,200 people for a distribution centre."

Recruitment agencies

Yellow Pages lists more than 120 recruitment agencies in Northampton.

Recruiters like Zelia are astonished that unemployment has risen

They all make a living by placing temporary and permanent staff with local employers.

Many tell the same story - that employers still find it hard to get the right staff.

"We are struggling for candidates," Hellie Baxter, manager of Interaction Recruitment says.

"We advertised a job last week and got a poor response. There are plenty of jobs around, it's a growing market."

That sentiment is echoed at Select Appointments, which specialises in office staff.

Manager Zelia Bignell says the internet is now the favoured avenue for white collar job seekers to make contact with her.

"The face of recruitment has changed. Whereas someone would have taken a day off to go round all the agencies, they go on the web site now, and they fire their CV off to half a dozen agencies and do it that way," Ms Bignell says.

"We still are finding it hard to get the candidates that are needed. I'm amazed that unemployment has gone up."

Local economy

So is the higher claimant count at the job centre just a freak occurrence?

you are more likely to see people who were formerly on incapacity benefit classified as job seekers Iain Andrews, Northants Chamber of Commerce

Probably not.

There have been some lay-offs by small and medium sized employers in the town, while mail order cosmetics firm Avon has shed several hundred jobs from its packaging and distribution centre in Northampton over the last couple of years.

But according to Iain Andrews of the local Chamber of Commerce, the lengthening dole queue in the town is less than half the size it was 10 years ago.

"The numbers are very low to start with. Minor job losses and small fluctuations can exaggerate the picture," he explains.

"Also, due to disability and equality legislation, you are more likely to see people who were formerly on incapacity benefit classified as job seekers, so that can skew the figures."

Meanwhile, the Chamber's own quarterly survey of the county's economy has not shown any dramatic changes in the employment landscape, Mr Andrews adds.

"The economy has slowed but only very gently. What it does show is that in the county more than 65% of businesses who have tried to recruit, struggle to recruit the people they are looking for."