The UK labour market tightened further in November with the number of jobless falling 6,200 to reach 934,200, the lowest level since September 1975, according to official figures from National Statistics. Analysts had expected no change following last month's upwardly revised fall of 4,600. The broader ILO measure showed the UK unemployment rate was unchanged in the three months to October at 5.2pc, and 0.1 percentage points up over the year. However, based on the government preferred ILO definition, the unemployment level was 1.532 million, up 19,000 on the previous three months and up 44,000 on the same period a year ago.
Findings of the latest labour force survey revealed that total employment rose by 105,000 to 27.759 million in the three months to October, the highest level on record, and 242,000 over the year. The LFS employment rate in the three months to October stood at 74.5pc of the working age population, up 0.2pc from the previous three-month period. Today's figures take into account the results of the 2001 census which show that previous estimates of total UK population were about 1 million too high. ///www.fxcentre.com