UK unemployment fell to a new 25-year low in April, handing a gift to the Labour government as it heads towards a general election on June 7th.
National Statistics (NS) said the claimant count fell by a bigger than expected 10,200 last month to 975,800, comfortably below the magic one million mark and the lowest level since November, 1975.
That means that just 3.2 per cent of the workforce is unemployed by that measure, the lowest percentage since August, 1975.
Mr Tony Blair's government is campaigning heavily on its competent stewardship of the economy which has seen unemployment, inflation and interest rates fall to low levels. The government is well ahead in opinion polls and is widely expected to win a second term.
NS said that even under the government's preferred Labour Force Survey measure of unemployment, the jobless rate fell to a record low of 5.1 per cent in the three months to March, down from 5.3 per cent in the previous three months.
Under the same measure, employment rose to 28.1 million in the period, up 100,000 on the previous three months, also a record since the series began in 1984.
NS said there was little noticeable impact so far from the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak but cautioned the figures were only for January-March and so covered only the first five weeks of the disease.
A key measure of wage inflation issued at the same time showed average earnings growth in the three months to March fell back to 5.1 per cent on the year from an upwardly revised 5.2 per cent in the three months to February.