Unemployment continues to fall, say figures

Unemployment continued to fall last month despite the impact of recession in the manufacturing sector, official figures showed today.

The Office of National Statistics said the number of people claiming unemployment benefit fell in September by 4,900 to 942,100.

Today's figures are part of a downward trend that has seen claimant unemployment fall throughout the year.

Economists had expected it to rise as a spate of redundancies - particularly in the hard-hit manufacturing and technology sectors - began to show in the figures.

The fall was however less than last month's drop of 6,000 and the Government's preferred International Labour Organisation figure - which includes people not eligible for benefit - rose by 53,000 to 1,507,000, the largest increase since the first quarter of 1993.

The number of people in employment slipped by 19,000 between June and August to 28,161,000.

Following the September 11 terror attacks a number of companies, including British Airways and Virgin Atlantic, have announced job losses although it is too early for the cuts to impact on official figures.

Average earnings for the quarter rose by 4.5%, a fall of 0.1% on the previous period.

Most watched News videos