Hence, rising employment appears to be encouraging people to enter the labour market and search for work, which could explain the rise in unemployment. While overall unemployment is up, the proportion of people who have been long term unemployed for over 12 months has generally been falling since the first three months of 2019. Another positive sign is that the level of vacancies increased for the third month on the trot following nearly a year of decline. However, not all of today's numbers are positive. New quarterly workforce jobs numbers were also released today, and these showed a continuing decline in employment growth down from 251,000 in the three months to March 2019 to just 68,000 in the three months to December 2019. Also, wage growth is continuing to moderate with increases down to 3.1 per cent and 1.5 per cent in real terms after taking account of inflation. While today's numbers are positive, the outlook is very uncertain given the coronavirus. The precise magnitude of the impact of the coronavirus on the economy and the labour market is currently unknowable, but it will undoubtedly be negative and probably very substantially negative. The hope is that the impact will only be short term. In these circumstances bold actions by government to support people without incomes, because they cannot work, will be needed, so payments from Universal Credit must be speeded up as a matter of urgency. People affected must also be reminded of the availability of contributory Employment and Support Allowance, including for self-employed people, and the conditions for access to this must be eased further than has already happened. The negative economic shock of the coronavirus may well lead to a sudden drop in employment levels and a sudden rise in unemployment. To prevent this unemployment turning into long term detachment from the labour market, the government will need to stand ready to unveil a package of active policies to assist unemployed people.