Joblessness creeps up again

Unemployment rose for the third successive month although the rise was small. It went up by 6,000 to 1.54 million in the three-month period to June but the unemployment rate went down to 5.1%.

There were 942,000 unemployed men (a rate of 5.7%) and 601,000 women (4.5%).

The figures are based on the International Labour Office definition, which includes people not eligible for benefit and is the government's preferred measure.

Regional figures show substantial increases in the jobless of 15,000 in the South East and 7,000 in Yorkshire and the Humber.

Six of the 12 regions bucked the trend and saw falls in joblessness. It was down by 12,000 in the North East and by 6,000 in Scotland.

The claimant count showed a monthly fall of 3,100 to 949,600.

TUC general secretary John Monks said: "While the overall labour market remains relatively stable, this conceals a continued haemorrhaging of jobs in the manufacturing sector with an average of 15,000 jobs going each month.

"Unless the Bank acts decisively and cuts rates, the faltering world economy and weakening consumer activity will intensify the rate of job losses in manufacturing and this malaise will ultimately spread to the wider economy."