The number of jobs in Northern Ireland has risen to its highest level on record, while the unemployment rate has fallen to its lowest level.

The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment confirmed yesterday that a total of 691,600 jobs were filled in December 2005, up 4,610 on December 2004. When adjusted for seasonal factors, Northern Ireland's rate of unemployment stood at 4 per cent, compared with 4.6 per cent in December 2004.

Unemployment in Northern Ireland now stands below the UK average rate of 5 per cent. Strabane and Derry had the highest proportion of unemployment benefit claimants, at 5 per cent and 4.8 per cent respectively. The lowest rate of unemployment, 1.7 per cent, was recorded in Mid-Ulster. Compared with the previous month, unemployment fell in Strabane, Newry and Omagh, but rose in Belfast and Coleraine.

UK enterprise minister Angela Smith said Northern Irish businesses needed to become more commercially oriented.

"It is our aim to instill a climate whereby our companies are more market aware and focused on business improvement. By investment in the future and developing high value-added products and services, our businesses will be able to ensure the continued growth in Northern Ireland jobs," she said. In the UK as a whole, the number of persons unemployed and claiming benefit experienced its biggest increase since 1992. But the rise was not enough to shift the UK's unemployment rate which remained historically low.

The UK Office for National Statistics (ONS) said yesterday that the claimant count rose in January by 14,600. The ONS confirmed that earnings grew by 3 per cent year-on-year in January, the weakest increase since April 2003.

Meanwhile in Germany, the country's private bankers' association said that renewed growth there should lead to the first fall in unemployment this year since 2001.