Joblessness back on track

Unemployment has fallen for the first time in three months. Under the Labour Force Survey (LFS) count, the government's preferred measure, it fell by 16,000 to 1.41 million in the three months to July compared with the previous three months. The LFS count includes people not eligible for benefits.

The unemployment rate was down to 4.7%. There were 826,000 unemployed men (a 5.1% rate) and 586,000 unemployed women (a 4.3% rate).

The claimant count measure of unemployment, which only takes in those actually drawing benefit, showed its 15th monthly fall in a row, dropping by 6,100 on the previous month to 830,200 in August - the lowest level since July 1975. The rate under this measure was 2.7% - the lowest rate since April 1975.

The number of unemployed men on benefit fell to 619,400 (a 3.7% rate), while the number of women fell to 210,800 (a 1.5% rate).

The number of job vacancies rose by 73,400 on a year earlier to 659,200 in the three months to August. There were 2.6 vacancies per 100 employee jobs, compared to 2.3 vacancies a year ago.

However, manufacturing continued to haemorrhage jobs - down by 93,000 to 3.36 million in the three months to July compared to a year earlier. Textiles, leather and clothing shed 19,000 jobs over the year.