Joblessness shows surprise rise

Unemployment showed a surprise rise in the three months to May, according to official figures.

Under the Labour Force Survey (LFS) count, the government's preferred measure, it rose by 6,000 to 1.43 million compared with the previous three months. The LFS count includes people not eligible for benefits.

The unemployment rate was 4.8%. There were 824,000 unemployed men (a 5.1% rate) and 608,000 unemployed women (a 4.5% rate).

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: "These figures show the labour market has stopped growing. Although we expect this pause to be temporary, it is a timely reminder that labour market expansion can never be taken for granted."

The claimant count measure of unemployment, which only takes in those actually drawing benefit, showed its 13th monthly fall in a row, dropping by 9,000 to 862,600 in June - the lowest figure since August 1975.

The rate under this count was down to 2.7%.

The number of unemployed men on benefit fell to 634,200 (a 3.8% rate) while the number of women was down to 216,700 (a 1.5% rate).

Jobs in manufacturing continued to fall - down by 106,000 to 3.37 million in the three months to May on a year earlier. Textiles shed 19,000 of these jobs.