In December 1,280 people were registered with Social Security as looking for employment – down 30 on the previous month and 110 on December 2015.
The fall is being put down to Social Security’s Back to Work programme, which recorded over 2,000 job starts in 2016. A total of 70 per cent of those job starts were in retail, hospitality, tourism, construction and finance.
Of those registered as actively seeking work, 79 per cent were British, 11 per cent Portuguese or Madeiran and ten per cent from other nations.
Some backbenchers and members of the public have questioned whether declining unemployment figures are down to more staff being employed on zero-hour contracts.
But Susan Wright, head of the Back to Work programme, said zero-hour and part-time contracts represented far less of a proportion of employment for those on the initiative than people thought.
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