Unemployment continues to fall

Unemployment has once again fallen on both official counts. Under the Labour Force Survey (LFS) count it was marginally down by 5,000 to 1.66 million in the three months to August compared with the previous three months.

The LFS count is the government’s preferred measure and includes people not eligible for benefits. The unemployment rate was 5.4%.

There were 947,000 unemployed men under the count — a 5.7% rate — and 708,000 women — a 5.0% rate.

Unemployment under the claimant count, which only includes those drawing Jobseeker’s Allowance, fell for the twelfth successive month to stand at 835,800 in September.

The unemployment rate under this count was 2.6%. The number of unemployed men on benefit was down to 609,700 and the unemployment rate down to 3.5% — and the number of unemployed women was down to 226,100 with the rate steady at 1.5%.

Manufacturing lost 42,000 jobs in the three months to August compared to the same period a year earlier, and employment in the sector was down to 2.95 million.

In the three months to August, 120,000 people were made redundant. This is equal to the lowest figure since comparable records began in 1995 and is down 14,000 on a year ago.