Unemployment continues to fall
Unemployment is continuing to fall, according to official figures issued by the Office of National Statistics.
The Government’s preferred measure of unemployment, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) measure, has fallen over the quarter to the end of June from 5.1% to 5.0%. This represents an unemployed total of 1.46 million, down by 42,000 from the previous quarter.
July also saw a fall in the claimant count figures for unemployment by 8,800 on the June figure, leaving 939,200 people claiming unemployment benefits.
This news will back recent figures that suggest the economy has picked up in recent months, such as the BDO Stoy Heyward compilation of confidence surveys, which recently suggested expectations for growth have risen.
While unemployment continues to fall, the total workforce has continued to grow. At the end of the quarter there were 27.92 million in work, up 63,000 from the three months to March 2003 and 224,000 more than a year ago.
Minister for Work Des Browne lauded the figures, commenting: ‘for the second month running, I am able to announce that record numbers of people in the UK are in work. We now have one of the highest employment rates in the world.’
Average earnings for the economy as a whole rose 3.1% in the year to June, down from 3.5% in May indicating that wage pressure is not high. However, public and private sector wage increases were significantly different.
Private sector average earnings were 2.6% up on last year in June, down 0.5% from the May figure. This contrasts with the Public sector rate of 5.1%, which was up 0.2% on the May rate.
