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Unemployment falls to 2.51 million

UK unemployment fell by 57,000 in the three months to May, the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics show.

The unemployment rate in May was 7.8% of the economically active population, down 0.% percentage points from the three months between December 2012 and February 2013.

Unemployment was highest in the North East at 10.4% and lowest in the South West at 5.8%.

There was a small rise in the number of employed people in the three months between March and May, a rise in the number of people “not in the labour force,” or economically inactive.

The number of unemployed stood at 2.51 million as the number of people aged 16 and over who were in work was 29.71 million. Year-on-year there was a 336,000 increase in the number of people in employment.

Graeme Leach, chief economist at the IoD, commented: “The latest labour market figures are positive without being too exciting. Employment is up by 16,000 and the claimant count measure of unemployment is down 21,000. This suggests the recovery is feeding through into the jobs market, but that it will still feel like a jobless recovery for some time yet.”

Teresa Folkes, director of client services for The Prince’s Initiative for Mature Enterprise (PRIME), said: “It’s encouraging to see that the number of unemployed people in the UK has reduced, however, not everyone can share in this good fortune. If we take a closer look at the ONS’s figures, there has been both a quarterly and yearly increase of the number of unemployed over 50s in the UK, which is in stark contrast to the other age groups.

“This is a worrying trend and can only get worse, when you consider that people are living longer and need to work for longer, all in the context of a shrinking job market. Older people are clearly struggling and we would like to see more efforts in getting them off benefits and back into sustained and fulfilling employment.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .