Jobless? What jobless?

It's hard to know what to make of the news this week about unemployment. It seems that the number of people claiming unemployment benefits fell in February.

Good. Then it turns out that the number of people actually in employment has also fallen. Bad.

Apart from the complete disappearance of swathes of the population, the only logical explanation for this is that young people are just giving up on finding a job and staying in education. Figures seem to back this up.

Now the Office of National Statistics tells us that one in four adults in Britain are not working. That means 10.6 million people either don't have a job or have stopped looking for one. So unemployment has dipped to 2.45 million and is yet to breach the 2.5 million mark or escalate to the 3 million that we saw in rough patches of the 80s and 90s.

Let's just hope that however it's read, this is good news.

What's cooking?

Quick question: What are there more of in the UK, Greggs or McDonald's?

Automatically you'd think Golden Arches but in fact, there are just over 1,250 of these outlets compared with 1,400 Greggs. And that number will increase by another 60 outlets according to expansion plans announced today.

By selling their steak bakes and doughnuts under the comforting slogan of "The Home of Fresh Baking" Greggs is really making serious money with profits of £48.8 million last year. That's a helluva lot of sausage rolls.

But when I see the queues of people snaking out the doors of the two Greggs in my local high street every lunchtime, it's clear that the company is doing something right.

The bugbear that is bank bonuses

What part of public anger at banker bonuses doesn't Royal Bank of Scotland get?

Don't they understand that we, the public, own 84% of their company and we want a return on that money. Not a massive profit, just a return to stability. That's all.

But RBS just will not stop banging on about their bonus structure and the rewards they're planning for staff. Okay, the new scheme announced today is based on much tougher criteria and subject to a host of clawback measures – but could still pay out a maximum 400% of directors' annual pay in shares.

If you go to the bank and ask for money, they will always look at you in the light of a worst-case scenario. So should we look at this bonus structure and how it affects the public and its ownership of RBS.

And speaking one shareholder to another, I still don't like it.