Unemployment hits seven year low

“Today’s data showed nearly 2,000 more people are employed than at the beginning of the year and that participation rates are also slightly higher over that same period”.

“There was more evidence that the falls in employment earlier this year were just a blip, with a 177,000 quarterly rise in employment in the three months to September”.

The increase is a dip of 0.3 per cent from last month, though salaries lifted by 3 per cent if bonuses are also taken into account, or a typical £492 a week before tax.

The number of people out of work stands at 1.75 million, while the unemployment rate is 5.3%, down from 5.6% in the previous three months.

The employment rate (for the age group 16 to 64) was 73.7%, the highest rate since beginning of comparable records in 1971.

The unemployment rate, which reached 8.5% in 2011, has dropped in the past couple of years, and this year the rate has fallen much faster than what the Bank of England (BoE) had expected.

Unite cautioned that the jobs recovery was being fuelled by self-employment and low-paid, insecure, part-time jobs. The number counted as unemployed in October was 739,500, down 55,300 from the 794,800 high in July and the lowest since May 2014.

Non-UK nationals from the European Union working in this country increased by 324,000 to 2.02 million over the past year, while the figure for non-UK nationals from outside the European Union was little changed at 1.2 million. In Victoria, it decreased to 5.6% from 6.3%.

Britain’s unemployment rate has tumbled to a new record low, but wage growth fell short of expectations, supporting the case to keep interest rates lower for longer.

The total number of people with jobs surged by 58,600 in the month, almost four times what economists had expected.

Broadly speaking, employment conditions are likely to have remained solid at the start of Q4, given the continuing rebalancing of growth away from resource investment towards the more labour-intensive sectors of residential construction and services exports.

Mr Robertson said a 12 per cent increase in this week’s ANZ job ads survey and strong economic data from the United States lent support to the lower unemployment figure being correct.