Five unemployed people chasing every vacancy

Nearly five unemployed people are chasing every vacant job in the West Midlands, new figures reveal today.

Some 162,914 people on the dole are hunting for work – but there are only 33,507 vacancies.

In the Black Country, Walsall has the highest ratio of claimants looking for work, with 8.7 people going for every job.

The town has 10,412 people out-of-work, but there are only 1,197 unfilled posts in the area.

In Wolverhampton, there are 11,845 jobless battling over 1,464 available posts.

A total of eight people are going for every vacant job in Sandwell, which equates to 13,259 people in competition for 1,661 jobs. In Dudley, the figure is 7.8 people – or 9,731 going for 1,248 jobs. And in Staffordshire, some 14,944 unemployed are vying for a total of 5,631 posts.