Low jobless count belies insecurity

Unemployment was down on the two official counts, according to government figures.

Under the Labour Force Survey (LFS) count, the government's preferred measure, it was down by 21,000 to 1.46 million in the three months to December compared with the previous three months - a two-and-a-half year low. The LFS count includes people not eligible for benefits.

The rate of unemployment was down to 4.9% from 5.0%. There were 883,000 unemployed men (a 5.5% rate) and 576,000 unemployed women (a 4.3% rate).

The claimant count measure of unemployment, which only takes in those actually drawing benefit, showed its eighth monthly fall in a row, dropping 13,400 to 892,100 in January.

The rate using this measure fell to 2.9% - the lowest since June 1975. The number of unemployed men fell to 666,800 (a 4.1% rate) and the number of unemployed women was down to 225,300 (a 1.6% rate).

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: "The further fall in unemployment and increase in total employment is welcome but the labour market is weaker than it looks. The number of full-time and permanent employee jobs went down and the number of people in less secure temporary jobs and self-employment went up."