Labour presides over jobs growth

Employment has reached record levels since the last election, according to official figures, and unemployment is down.

The number of people in employment has risen by nearly a million since June 2001 and is at its highest level since comparable records began in 1971. The total in employment in the three months to February was 28.64 million against 27.69 million four years ago - a rise of 945,000.

The growth has been spread between both men and women with male employment up by 458,000 and female employment by 486,000.

Over two-thirds (68%) of the growth has been in full-time employment with 638,000 more full-time workers and an extra 306,000 part-time workers. And women have benefited most with an extra 458,000 full-time workers compared with 179,000 men.

Unemployment has fallen on both official counts since June 2001. Under the Labour Force Survey (LFS) the count is down by 42,000 to 1.43 million in the three months to February 2005 compared with 1.47 million in the three months to June 2001. The unemployment rate has fallen from 5.0% in June 2001 to 4.8% in February 2005.

The claimant count of unemployed has fallen by 132,900 from 961,600 (a rate of 3.1%) in June 2001 to 828,700 (a rate of 2.6%) in March 2005 .