Ulster Unionist Economy spokesperson, Mike Nesbitt, says the latest employment figures from the Northern Ireland Statistics & Research Agency are a spin doctor’s dream. The analysis shows the jobless rate falling from 7.4% to 6.9%, but the number of people claiming unemployment-related benefits up by 300.

The Strangford MLA says: “Using multiple measures makes it very easy to keep your glass half full or half empty, but the bottom line is the old adage that if you are unemployed, you are 100% unemployed.

“There are two underlying trends that give great concern. The first is that more than one in three unemployed people have been unemployed for a year or more, and we all know the longer you are unemployed, the less chance that will change.

“The other is the fact that one in five young people between 18 and 24 are not employed, and it is a stark, uncomfortable truth that, unless there is a radical shift in these trends, some may never work. That is the scale of the challenging facing politicians.

“To keep the glass half full, I turn to the latest survey from the Federation of Small Businesses in Northern Ireland. 97% of businesses in Northern Ireland fall into the Small and Medium Sized (SME) Enterprise category, and FSB research suggests if every SME took on just one more employee, it could boost employment by over 40,000, tackling two-thirds of our total unemployment problem.

“I would also call on the Department of Enterprise to study the FSB’s research into apprenticeships. Only 4% of the FSB’s 8,000 members currently offer apprenticeships, but thousands more would consider it, if there were some support, be it a wage subsidy, an upfront incentive payment, or in-kind support with administration and human resource management. With £17 million in DETI's Jobs Fund, there is huge potential to start delivering on the target of 25,000 in the Draft Economic Strategy published last month.”