Despite a series of high-profile job losses, unemployment in Britain has fallen more sharply than expected in July to a fresh 26-year low, official data show.
The claimant count measure of unemployment fell by 12,800, around 10,000 more than City pundits had expected, to a total of 950,000.
The fall was not large enough to move the jobless rate which remained steady at 3.2 per cent, though that is itself close to 25-year lows.
On the British government's preferred ILO measure of unemployment, which tries to capture those out of work but not claiming benefit, unemployment ticked up slightly to 1.48 million in the three months to June from 1.453 million in the three months to May. This pushed the unemployment rate up to 5 per cent from 4.9 per cent.
Unemployment in Britain has been falling steadily since the recession of the early 1990s, but the economic slowdown this year is likely to start pushing up the jobless rate in the second half of the year. Britain’s national statistics office said the average fall in unemployment had been close to 10,000 a month over the past six months.