Credit Crunch

On November 12, the number of unemployed people in the North East reached a 100,000 with figures showing there was a further 7,000 job losses in the last quarter. The statistics showed more than 15,000 people on Teesside were claiming Jobseekers Allowance. 

Nationally, 1.82 million people were out of work, the largest number since 1997. Meanwhile, 500 jobs were at risk at Virgin Media in Stockton, after the company announced 2,200 positions were being cut across the country by 2012.

BT announced plans to cut 10,000 jobs in the current financial year. 4,000 jobs had already gone, the rest were to be shed before March 2009. The future of BT's call centre in Middlesbrough was suddenly uncertain. BT's chief executive, Ian Livingston, told the BBC there would be no compulsory redundancies.

Despite those gloomy jobless figures, it's was claimed the region would actually need an extra 8,000 engineers over the next six years. TTE Technical Training Group, based on Teesside told the BBC it could fill every apprentice position four times over, so popular has engineering become.