Jobless total falls in the UK
Unemployment in the UK has fallen for the first time in 18 months as thousands more people have found jobs in recent months, official figures showed today.
The number of people out of work fell by 7,000 in the quarter to October to 1.7 million, although the total is still almost 200,000 higher than a year ago.
The healthier picture was also reflected in the number of people claiming jobseeker’s allowance, which fell by 5,700 last month to 950,800, the fourth monthly reduction in the last five months.
But the number of people classed as economically inactive, including students, those looking after relatives and people who have given up trying to find work, increased by 38,000 in the latest three months to 7.84 million.
More than one in five people of working age are now economically inactive, according to today’s figures from the Office for National Statistics.
The number of people in work increased by 41,000 over the three months to October to 29 million, the second highest on record and a rise of 216,000 over the last year.
Around 140,000 people were made redundant in the latest quarter, unchanged from the previous quarter.
Average earnings increased by 4.1% in the year to October, up by 0.2% on the previous month.
Wage growth in private firms was 4.2%, compared to 3.3% in the public sector.
Excluding bonuses, average earnings rose by 3.8% in the latest period, up by 0.3%.
Other figures showed that the number of job vacancies across the UK fell by 12,200 in the three months to November to just under 600,000.
There were 13,000 days lost through industrial disputes in October, 10,000 fewer than in September but twice as many as in August.
The UK’s unemployment rate of 5.6% is lower than in most other European countries, including Germany (8.2%), France (8.8%) and Spain (8.4%) but higher than the Republic of Ireland (4.2%), Slovenia (5.4%) and Luxembourg (4.9%).
