The regional shape of the recession is starting to alter. The current surprise performer is Wales. Having been hit early and hard, Wales now emerges as the only part of the UK to have seen unemployment fall in the three months to May, when it declined by 1,000 to 107,000.

The Welsh assembly government’s £48m Proact scheme, which offers subsidised training places to companies facing redundancies, probably lies behind this. Part-financed by the European Social Fund, employers can apply for up to £4,000 per worker – half for training and half as a wage top-up. It has so far saved 4,487 jobs at 76 companies.