British unemployment falls to lowest in a decade

According to the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr), the record employment figure is “indicative of the fact that the benefits of the upswing in the labour market are felt throughout the population and are not caused by fewer people registered as job seekers”.

The percentage of people out of work is 5.1%, which is the lowest level since the three-month period to October 2005, while the number of people in work has never been higher at 31.4 million.

According to the Office for National Statistics, Scotland now has the highest employment rate out of the four United Kingdom nations and is outperforming the United Kingdom as a whole.

Employment data out of the United Kingdom suggest that the economy continues to make good progress as the unemployment rate fell to 5.1%, better than expected. The employment rate north of the Border has increased to 74.9 per cent, the highest level on record.

Nationally, unemployment has fallen to a near eight-year low and a record number of people are in work. It had stood at 5.2 per cent in October 2015.

Nearly 23 million people are in a full-time job, 436,000 more than a year earlier, while 8.4 million are working part-time, up by 152,000.

Between May and July a year ago wages were increasing at an annual rate of 2.9 per cent – the highest rise since the financial crisis.

This is a record-breaking set of figures – and has got 2016 off to a fantastic start.

This afternoon, the United States have just published their December inflation figures which showed that on a month on month basis prices actually fell by 0.1%.

ONS statistician David Freeman said: “These results show the labour market continued to strengthen in the autumn”.

“What’s more, full-time employees make up the majority of the increase in employment over the past year, and wages are growing even before our new National Living Wage takes effect in April”.

“This is the key concern when it comes to wages and inflation, as this relationship can become self-reinforcing – lower earnings drive lower inflation and vice versa”, said Kallum Pickering, a senior United Kingdom economist at Berenberg.

Beatson said: “This is not surprising because the fundamental conditions required for a step change in pay growth are simply not there”.