UNEMPLOYMENT has dropped in Oxfordshire for the third year running.

According to figures released yesterday by the Office for National Statistics, 11,800 people – or 3.3 per cent of the working population – were unemployed between April 2014 and March 2015.

Overall, 77.4 per cent of the county’s population, a total of 349,100 people, are now in work.

Rates across Oxfordshire have dropped steadily since 2012-13, when 6.5 per cent of the working population of the county, or 24,000 people, were unemployed.

Ginette Gower, head of communications at Oxfordshire Chamber of Commerce, said: “There is a lot of growth in Oxfordshire and these figures demonstrate that.”

Oxford Job Centre’s Dianne McKenna-Rhead said the number of job centre users had dropped from 1,523 last July to 1,016 this July.

Across Abingdon, Banbury, Didcot, Oxford and Witney the number has fallen by 160 in the past four weeks.

She said: “We have a really buoyant labour market in Oxfordshire.

“On top of that we have got Christmas vacancies coming in now; Toys R Us, Iceland and B&M Bargains are all recruiting.”

She added turnover at the Oxford Job Centre was very high, with some people making a first appointment only to call and say they had already found a job.

Introtrain, a government-run academy based in Ferry Hinksey Road, offers hairdressing apprenticeships to about 75 young people every year.

Academy managing director Carolyn Della-Ragione believes apprenticeships are helping to boost the employment rate.

She said: “The new figures don’t surprise me.

“When the young people do apprenticeships here they go straight into a job.”

Elsewhere, social enterprise Oxford Wood Recycling offers work to the long-term unemployed at its warehouse in Abingdon.

Up to 17 people hold down part-time jobs at the organisation at any given time.

Chief executive Richard Snow said: “It’s great news that the figures are down.

“We have six job positions we are currently recruiting for and I wouldn’t say we have been overloaded with applications; maybe that’s an indicator. But there’s always a group of long-term unemployed that are just recycled around the job market, and I doubt there’s as much movement there.”