Jobless total up by 400

MORE than 400 new people joined the dole queues in Oldham last month pushing the total above 7,500, figures have revealed.

There are now 7,595 people across the borough claiming benefits compared with 7,187 in July.

It means 5.5 per cent of those able to work across Oldham are on job-seeker’s allowance (JSA), compared with 4.4 per cent in the North-West and 3.9 per cent across the country. Youngsters make up a third of the claims, with 2,580 under-24s unable to find work — 95 of them for more than a year.

Nationally, the number of JSA claimants rose to 1.58 million and the number of people unemployed in the UK rose by 80,000 to 2.51 million in the three months to July, the Office of National Statistic figures show.