Further fall in manufacturing jobs

The number of manufacturing jobs fell by 82,000 in the first quarter of 2005 compared to the same period last year. Employment in the sector is now 3.23 million, the lowest level since comparable records began in 1978.

And the figures look set to get worse. The official statistics do not cover the recent heavy job losses announced at the MG Rover car company, IBM computer group and Marconi electronics firm.

Unemployment under the Labour Force Survey (LFS) count, the government's preferred measure, fell by 15,000 to 1.4 million in the first quarter of 2005 compared with the previous quarter. The LFS includes people not eligible for benefits.

This represented an unemployment rate of 4.7% - unchanged on the previous quarter. There were 823,000 unemployed men (a 5.1% rate) and 573,000 women (a 4.2% rate).

The claimant count of unemployed, which only includes those drawing Jobseekers' Allowance, rose for the third consecutive month to 839,400 in April (a rate of 2.7%).

The number of unemployed men on benefit rose to 621,300 (a 3.7% rate), and the number of unemployed women rose to 218,100 (a 1.5% rate).

The number of vacancies fell to 628,900 in the three months to April, a rate of 2.4 vacancies for every 100 jobs.