Unemployment inches upwards

Unemployment under the Labour Force Survey (LFS) count rose by by 13,000 to 1.4 million in the three months to November 2004 compared with the previous three months. The LFS count is the government's preferred measure and includes people not eligible for benefits.

This represented an unemployment rate of 4.7% - unchanged on the previous quarter. There were 830,000 unemployed men (a 5.1% rate) and 570,000 women (a 4.2% rate).

On the other hand, the claimant count of unemployed, which only includes those drawing benefits, fell by 6,200 to 826,300 in December - the lowest level since July 1975.

The claimant count unemployment rate was steady at 2.7% - the lowest level since April 1975. The number of unemployed men on benefit fell to 612,800 (a 3.6% rate), and the number of unemployed women fell to 213,500 (a 1.5% rate).

The number of job vacancies rose in the three months to December compared with the previous three months to an average of 648,800. However, the number of vacancies per 100 employee jobs remained at 2.5 - unchanged on the previous quarter.

The downward spiral in manufacturing jobs continued. They fell by 3.3% or 110,000 jobs to 3.25 million in the three months to November 2004, compared with a year earlier.