Unemployment in Britain reversed two months of increases and dropped by 2,100 to 936,000 during April, official figures showed today, belying predictions of a further rise.
The small drop left the jobless rate steady at 3.1 per cent for the 16th straight month, the National Statistics office said.
Economists had forecast a small rise in the jobless total. Under the International Labour Organisation's broader measure, unemployment fell by 6,000 in the three months to March from the previous quarter to 1.5 million.
The ILO figure equates to an unemployment rate of 5.1 per cent, unchanged from the previous three months.
The annual growth rate of headline average earnings meanwhile saw a rise, increasing to 3.4 per cent year-on-year in the three months to March from 3 per cent in the quarter to February.
And despite the overall jobless drop, there was further gloom in the embattled manufacturing sector, where the number of jobs fell 135,000 in the three months to March compared to a year ago, down to a record low of 3.55 million.
The biggest impact was felt in electrical and optical equipment, where 41,000 people lost jobs, and in the three sectors of textiles, leather and clothing, metal products and transport equipment, each of which shed 17,000 jobs.
The figures showed that the number of people employed rose to 27.86 million - the highest since records began in 1984. This was up 47,000 on the previous three months and 283,000 ahead of a year earlier.
AFP