British unemployment unexpectedly fell last month to a fresh 27-year low, but government statisticians said the underlying trend was now rising.
The Office for National Statistics said today the number of people out of work and claiming dole fell 4,500 to 940,500, the lowest since October 1975.
That left the jobless rate at 3.1 per cent, the equal lowest since July 1975. City economists had predicted a small rise in the claimant count.
But the government's preferred Labour Force Survey measure of joblessness, which tries to capture those unemployed who are not claiming benefit, rose by 45,000 in three months to September, hitting 1.541 million, the highest in almost two years.
That pushed the jobless rate up to 5.3 per cent from 5.1 per cent in the previous three months, the highest level since the end of 2000. Many economists have long expected the economic slowdown earlier this year to push the unemployment total up.
The strength of consumer spending and the housing market have boosted employment in Britain's buoyant services sector this year even though manufacturers, who have borne the brunt of the global slowdown, have shed tens of thousands of jobs.
The financial sector has also laid off thousands of workers in response to the collapse in equity markets in the wake of the dotcom boom.