LABOUR claims that more than half of those who get jobs in the North-west are likely to be unemployed again in less than a year.

The figure has been produced by analysing the monthly official unemployment figures.

Janet Anderson, the Labour MP for Rossendale and Darwen, said: "In the North-west area 52,400 people had jobs which lasted less than one year.

"That is 52.2pc of the total number of people signing on."

She said that latest figures showed that across Great Britain more than 800,000 people made an unemployment claim between January and April of this year and just over half of them had already made a similar claim in the previous year.

In the North-west the figures showed that 23.5 per cent of those registered as unemployed had been out of a job five or more times in the last decade.

Ms Anderson said: "These figures show why job insecurity has become the main growth industry in Britain and why nobody believes ministers' false boasts about the economy."

She added: "Skilled, well-paid and full-time jobs are still disappearing in every area of the country and new jobs are mainly poorly-paid, insecure and temporary."

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