LONDON, July 16 - Unemployment in Britain unexpectedly fell to a two-year low in the three months to May, official data showed on Wednesday. The Office for National Statistics said the ILO measure of joblessness fell 20,000 in the three months to May from the previous three months to 1.47 million, the lowest level since November to January. That took the country's unemployment rate down to 5.0 percent, the lowest for two years.
On the claimant count measure of unemployment, which only counts those actually drawing "dole", there was another small rise of 1,700 in June, taking the total to 952,000, equivalent to 3.1 percent of the workforce. The claimant count has now risen for five months in a row and by 19,600. Statisticians said overall the data meant the country's labour market was broadly stable in spite of recent sluggish economic growth. There was some good news from the employment side of the equation which showed the numbers of jobs grew by 101,000 in the three months to May on the previous three months to a new record of 27.91 million people.
Within that, part-time working grew to a record while the unemployment rate for women fell to an all-time low of 4.3 percent. Data showed growth in average earnings across the economy picked up to 3.4 percent in the three months to May from 3.2 percent in the three months to April. The new figure remains well within the Bank of England's tolerance zone of 4.5 percent, however, and shows wage growth very benign.//