A NUMBER of big businesses moving into Bolton has seen the number of jobs on offer for local people increase leading to a fall in unemployment.

Figures released in January showed the number of job seekers is down three per cent on last year and down 31 per cent on five years ago.

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The figures showed that 7,877 claimants in Bolton who are required to look for work as part of their Universal Credit.

Of these 1,183 claimants are aged 18 to 24.

Over the past year large businesses including Amazon have moved into Bolton.

A tenth of the workforce at Amazon’s distribution centre in Over Hulton were long-term unemployed residents of the borough before the summer.

The “fulfilment” centre at Logistics North, which is one of 16 across the UK, opened for business last August. The recruitment drive which started last summer saw 1,200 jobs created.

This is said to contributed to the month-on-month decline in the number of jobseekers claiming benefits which was cut by 2.3 per cent in February thanks to the single recruitment round.