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UK jobless total falls to 1.63 million | UK jobless total falls to 1.63 million |
(35 minutes later) | |
The number of people without jobs and looking for work fell by 39,000 to 1.63 million between May and July, official figures show. | The number of people without jobs and looking for work fell by 39,000 to 1.63 million between May and July, official figures show. |
The unemployment rate was 4.9%, down from 5.5% a year earlier but little changed from last month's report, the Office for National Statistics said. | |
Growth in average weekly earnings including bonuses slowed slightly to an increase of 2.3% on last year. | |
The proportion of people in work hit a record high of 74.5%. | The proportion of people in work hit a record high of 74.5%. |
The ONS said the figures, which only cover one month since the result of the EU referendum, show "continuing improvement" in the jobs market. | |
But Samuel Tombs, chief UK economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, warned: "When you scratch beneath the surface, today's labour market figures are not as robust as they first appear." | |
The rise in people in work "remains supported by surging self-employment", Mr Tombs said. | |
"The strong growth also reflected a shift towards part-time working; total weekly hours rose by just 0.3% between April and July," he added. | |
Ben Brettell, senior economist at Hargreaves Lansdown, said the labour market is "still waiting for the Brexit effect", but that it will "gradually become clear over the next few months". | |
In August the claimant count, including Jobseeker's Allowance, actually went up from the previous month by 2,400 to 771,000. | |
The claimant count is treated with some caution, though, by economists as the move to Universal Credit has made it much harder to calculate. | |
Analysis: BBC economics editor Kamal Ahmed | |
One interesting nugget in the employment figures concerns the number of people employed in the public sector. | |
It is down to 5.33 million, the lowest level since the Office for National Statistics started collecting the figures in 1999 and a drop of 13,000 since March. | |
The former chancellor, George Osborne, often spoke about the need to "rebalance" the economy. | |
To an extent, he meant away from financial services and towards manufacturing. | |
But, more privately, he was actually very comfortable with an economy that was "rebalancing" away from the public sector towards the private sector, where wealth, he would argue, is actually created. | |
As cuts and wage freezes bite, the public sector has become less attractive as a place to build a career. | |
Yes, employment is at record levels, but it is the private sector that is on the up. | |
The unemployment estimates come from the Labour Force Survey in which the ONS talks to 40,000 households every three months. | |
Although it is a very large survey, there is still a margin of error. The ONS says it is 95% confident that the figure of a 39,000 fall in unemployment is correct to within 78,000. | |
As the estimated change is smaller than the margin of error, it means the change in unemployment is not statistically significant. |