Unemployment hits under-25s

Unemployment has edged up again. Under the Labour Force Survey (LFS) count it was up by 13,000 to 1.7 million in the three months to March compared with the previous quarter.

The LFS count is the government's preferred measure and includes people not eligible for benefits. The unemployment rate was steady at 5.5%. There were 971,000 unemployed men under the count - a 5.8% rate - and 728,000 women - a 5.2% rate.

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber pointed out that "young people under 25 continue to be particularly badly affected by rising unemployment" and that "women are also being harder hit, suffering larger increases in unemployment" over the past year.

Meanwhile, unemployment fell for the seventh successive month under the claimant count, which only includes those drawing Jobseeker's Allowance. The count was 890,000 in April - a 15,700 fall since March.

The unemployment rate under this count was down at 2.8%. The number of unemployed men on benefit was down to 649,300 - a 3.8% rate - and the number of unemployed women was down to 240,700 - a 1.6% rate.

Manufacturing lost 49,000 jobs in the three months to March on a year earlier, and employment in the sector was down to 2.96 million.