ONS reveals unemployment at 6.2 per cent for May to July
Unemployment has fallen to its lowest rate since late 2008 dropping to 6.2 per cent for May to July 2014, figures from the Office For National Statistics show.
The number of people out of work fell by 146,000 to 2.02 million over the three months, while employment grew by 74,000.
People claiming Jobseeker's Allowance dropped below one million (966,500) in August for the first time in six years.
Figures also showed a reduction in the youth unemployment rate to 16.6 per cent down from 18.5 per cent in the three months before.
However, pay growth remained below inflation rising by just 0.6 per cent (including bonuses) compared with a year earlier, while pay excluding bonuses rose by 0.7 per cent.
CIPD chief economist Mark Beatson said: “Figures vary from month to month but employment has continued to grow, perhaps not as quickly as in the last three or four quarters, but still by enough to keep pace with a growing population and deliver a big reduction in unemployment. Vacancies continue to rise and this is in line with our recruitment intentions survey, which shows that employers expect to carry on recruiting.
“However, the new figures also show that pay growth remains very subdued and well below all measures of price inflation, so the improvements in productivity and pay that we are all looking for are still not in sight. Employers need to take advantage of the currently favourable recruitment climate to invest in upskilling their business and its people.”
David Kern, chief economist at the British Chambers of Commerce, commented: “The real success story is the continued rapid fall in youth unemployment – however it is important to note that the figure is still above the national average. We are also concerned that the rise in employment figures in the past three months saw the smallest increase since Q2 2013.
“Annual wage increases remain well below 1 per cent which is much lower than the rate of inflation. This reinforces our belief that the Monetary Policy Committee must delay raising interest rates until well into 2015. We must give businesses a period of stability with low interest rates, if we are to strengthen the economic recovery.”