Jonathan Djanogly Member of Parliament for the Huntingdon Constituency spent a recent constituency day focussing on the Huntingdonshire economy. He met with the managing team of the local Job Centre Plus and had a meeting with representatives of Business Link East.
Mr Djanogly said,
'I had a very informative day and what became clear was that the organisations I visited are both working hard to help people and businesses through this difficult time.
'The Job Centre has increased its capacity in order to deal with the increased number of enquiries that they have seen. In May the number of claimants stood at 2571 which is a considerable increase from a year ago when the figure was 1517. Indeed the staffing of the job centre has also doubled and it is figures such as these which show the true cost of unemployment locally, I am pleased that a majority of people are happy with the service that they are being offered and, importantly, that there is a steady and significant flow of new jobs being created.
'The Job Centre managers are working hard with local town centre managers and businesses in order to place as many people as possible into the positions that are available. Ultimately however, it is businesses that create jobs and our local companies have been weathering the recession relatively well. Despite the increase in numbers, Huntingdonshire's unemployment rate is 2.9% compared to the national average of 4.1%.
'I found the meeting with Business Link to be very encouraging. They seem to be helping a lot of local companies, but it is not just those that are experiencing difficulty. They are offering advice to an increasing amount of people wishing to start their own business, often after redundancy. They advised me that the first signs have appeared of confidence returning to the market which can only bring benefits to the Huntingdon constituency.
'Huntingdonshire District Council has also been working hard to ease the pain of the recession and a good example of this is the push for more businesses to take advantage of small business rate relief which has been granted to the extent of £86,000 so far. They have also reported that they are coping well with the increase in the number of housing and council tax benefit claims that they have received.
'From a national perspective, Conservative MP's have been calling on the government to scrap the increase in National Insurance - which we see as a tax on jobs. We need better training opportunities and better credit assistance to businesses, particularly small ones.
'Beating this recession is as much about confidence as anything else. I am convinced that locally confidence remains high and that is good news for local employment.'"