Jobless figures keep on falling

Unemployment was down on both official counts, according to the latest figures. Under the Labour Force Survey (LFS) count it fell by 32,000 to 1.61 million in the three months to January 2008 compared with the previous three months.

The LFS count includes people not eligible for benefits. The unemployment rate was 5.2%. There were 926,000 unemployed men under the count — a 5.5% rate — and 682,000 women — a 4.8% rate.

Unemployment under the claimant count, which only includes those drawing Jobseeker’s Allowance, fell for the seventeenth successive month — this time by 2,800 — to stand at 793,500 in February.

The unemployment rate under this count was 2.5%. The number of unemployed men on benefit was down to 579,300 with an unemployment rate of 3.3% — and the number of unemployed women went down to 214,200 with an unemployment rate of 1.4%.

Manufacturing lost 28,000 jobs in the three months to January on the same period a year ago, and employment in the sector was down to 2.9 million.

In the three months to January, 110,000 people said they had been made redundant — a record low figure. This was down 23,000 on the previous three months and down 26,000 on a year ago.