By Mark Smulian | 17 July 2013
Unemployment fell slightly over the three months to May, with a 0.2% percentage points decline against the previous three months, the Office for National Statistics has said.
This gave an unemployment rate for the quarter of 7.8% of the economically active population, equivalent to 2.51 million people and down by 57,000 from the December to February period.
There were 29.7 million people aged 16 and over in employment, up by 16,000 from the previous quarter.
But there was also growth in the rate of those who were economically inactive, whose total increased between the two quarters by 0.2 percentage points to 22.5%, equivalent to 9.04 million people.
Commenting on the figures, Work Foundation senior economist Charles Levy said: ‘Our labour market continues to mark time and created only 16,000 jobs in the three months to May.
‘Total employment remains lower now than in the final three months of 2012. Unemployment is falling for both young and older workers, but this is being driven by individuals withdrawing from the labour market rather than entry into employment and long-term unemployment is still increasing.’
The Unite trade union welcomed the 57,000 fall in unemployment but general secretary Len McCluskey deplored the persistence of unemployment for thousands of people.
‘The long-term unemployed have been forgotten by George Osborne, as he skews his polices to pander to the rich with undeserved tax breaks,’ he said.
‘It is a scandal that 915,000 people have been out of work for more than a year and over 460,000 have been jobless for more than two years.’
But employment minister Mark Hoban noted that the number of people in work rose by 16,000 over the last quarter and the number in permanent jobs increased by 49,000 ‘more than offsetting falls in temporary and part time work’.
He said: ‘The fall in the number of people claiming out of work benefits, together with the news that there are currently over half a million vacancies available in the UK economy, show that there are opportunities out there for those who are prepared to work hard, and who aspire to get on in life.’
