ESSEX residents are taking advantage of new job opportunities with almost 10,000 back in work and off benefits.

Every district in the county has less people claiming jobseekers’ allowance than a year ago.

Dave Cope, the senior business development manager for JobCentre Plus in Essex, explained how this was possible.

He also exploded a number of myths surrounding the figures during a question and answer session with the Gazette.

Mr Cope has 22 years experience in the industry.

Q. The figures show a drop from 28,132 to 18,288 claimants in a year. But how many of these are in training rather than properly paid jobs?

A. You could make that argument many years ago but it no longer works because people in training are not included in these figures.

Q. How many of these are on zero hour contracts rather than in full time employment?

A. There are lots of flexible contracts around and there are lots of people perfectly happy with flexible contracts.

Generally we work with employers who offer a mixture of flexible and fixed but there are still people who want to work more.

There will be some zero hour contracts bringing numbers down but the number of people looking for more is lower than it has been for a several years

Q. How do the figures compare to other times in your lifetime? Are they the lowest in a year or the lowest ever?

A. I don’t have all the figures for all the years but to give you some headline figures. Across the whole of Braintree this is the lowest number of JSA claimants [1,260] since November 2002.

In Colchester the last time they were this low [1,461] was July 2005.

The other thing for Colchester is the new office.

Q. You often hear from people claiming they are better off on benefits than in work and job centre staff apparently telling them not to take jobs. Is this true? What is the real situation?

A. In the past the vast majority were better off in work, and I mean the vast majority. There may have been some in unusual situations when this wasn’t the case.

But with universal credits reality is from the New Year everyone will be better off in work and significantly better off.

Q. How will universal credits make it better for all to work than claim?

A. Universal credits will allow people to keep more. It won’t be get £1 for work lose £1 from benefits. The calculations mean you keep a greater proportion of benefits when working and it will be a big advantage to work.

Q. Will the system be more open to abuse? Are more people abusing the system? We know your experience is in the job market but it is linked to the benefit market.

A. The automation of systems has created the opportunity to drive out a lot of fraud.

Q. Some people claim the Job Centre has jobs available but not the jobs suitable to their level of training, qualification and skills. What do you say to them?

A. The reality is someone highly skilled in a specific area will have lots of other ways to find work rather than through jobs advertised at the Job Centre.

We actively encourage people to look everywhere. The help we can give them is directing them to a particular service or place which will have the job for them.

They may be people who have not had to look at the labour market in quite a while.

Others we can help find work directly. It depends what they need.

Q. Are a lot of these reductions due to an increas in apprenticeships?

A. Apprenticeships have increased significantly with a lot of Government support. Traineeships which are designed to be before apprenticeships also offer opportunities.

Q. Traditionally Essex has had a high number of Neets (young people not in education, employment or training). Is that still the case?

A. It is still an issue but less significant than it once was as we are at the lowest point for quite some time.

Q. Some people claim people are coming over here and stealing our jobs or coming over here to claim benefits.

But the figures show the number of people claiming JSA have fallen significantly so are those people wrong? What proportion of people are you dealing with from abroad or originally from Essex?

A. EU migrants are perfectly entitled to work in the UK like we are perfectly entitled to work in the European Union.

We don’t see many. Many find jobs before they come or find them quickly once here. What we can do is point them in the right direction if they need help.

Q. Essex has a larger number of people economically inactive - not working or claiming benefit. Why?

A. It is higher than the national average but we also have a higher level of economic affluence in Essex than the national average.

More people are in a position to make the decision not to work.

It also means there are opportunities to volunteer.