Jobless rate falls for ninth month running

UK unemployment, at its lowest level for 25 years, continued to fall in July with the numbers claiming benefit shrinking by 12,800 to 950,300. This was the ninth successive monthly fall. The unemployment rate remained steady at 3.2% of the workforce.

Alistair Darling, secretary of state for work and pensions, said: "Today's figures show that the UK labour market remains robust."

The number of male claimants fell by 8,300 on the previous month to 725,500, and the rate was down to 4.4%. The number of women claimants also fell by 4,500 to 224,800 or 1.6%.

A regional breakdown of the claimant count shows falls in all regions. The largest falls were in Scotland (2,000) and the North West and West Midlands (both 1,700).

The ILO unemployment rate, which attempts to measure all job seekers, including those not claiming benefits, fell by 14,000 to another record low of 1,484,000 in the three months to June. The unemployment rate of 5.0% was down by a tenth of a percentage point on the three months to March.

Labour Force Survey figures show that employment rose by 75,000 in the three months to June and by 250,000 over the same period last year. These were in full-time jobs as the number of people in part-time jobs fell by 18,000 in the three months to March.