THE number of people claiming Jobseekers’ Allowance in Swindon fell by 250 in October, according to new figures.

Across the month, the number of claimants dropped from 2,693 to 2,443, figures from the Office for National Statistics showed today.

Julie Marshall, manager of the Jobcentre Plus, in Princes Street, said the job market was improving all the time, particularly for younger people.

“Our 18 to 24 register is really, really dropping now,” she said. “There is a variation of jobs out there now and we have got a lot of different training coming on board, so we’re up-skilling people before they go out into the work force.”

She said training in things like interview techniques and offering work trials had helped people secure long-term positions.

Staff would now be looking to fill Christmas vacancies and turning their attention to the over-50s, Julie said.

“The area we are starting to concentrate on even more is the 50-plus customers,” she said.

“We haven’t got excessive amounts of people out of work in that group, but we feel we need to be doing even more for them.”

Also set to arrive in the coming weeks will be Work Access Devices (WADs), which enable people to search for vacancies quickly and easily.

Nationally, figures from the Office for National Statistics showed 694,000 more people are in jobs compared to this time last year.

Employment increased by 112,000 over the last three months, with the vast majority of the increase coming from people in full-time jobs, the figures showed.

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