Unemployment in the UK fell by 46,000 in the three months to June, the fifth consecutive monthly fall, figures show.

The drop means that the unemployment rate now stands at 8 per cent, down from 8.2 per cent, the Office for National Statistics revealed. Meanwhile the number of people claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) fell by 5,900 to 1.59 million.

The total number of people in work was 29.48 million between April and June, an increase of 201,000 from the previous quarter. Although the Olympics has had an effect on temporary employment – there were 16,000 extra people working in temp jobs compared to the first three months of the year – most of the growth was in permanent work.

Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith welcomed the figures.

“These are positive and encouraging figures demonstrating the strength of our private sector - notwithstanding the difficult economic times it is still creating jobs, the vast majority of which are full time,” he said. “Unemployment is falling and the claimant count is down."

The fall in the claimant count for JSA is particularly welcome news for the government as reforms to the assessment of incapacity benefit and changes to the rules on income support for lone parents were expected to push up the numbers claiming JSA.

But Gerwyn Davies, the CIPD's Labour Market Adviser, commented: “In a continuation of recent trends, today’s official ONS employment figures appear to show yet another strong labour market performance. However, a number of factors suggest that fault lines are emerging. For example, redundancy activity has picked up for the first time this year and there are record numbers of self employed and people working part time because they cannot find a full time job. There is also a continued increase in the number of people on government funded employment and training programmes."

Also striking a note of caution was a TUC report released today which said that the number of young people under 25 who are neither working nor in full-time education now stands at 1.5 million.

TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said: “Today's fall in unemployment is welcome, but there are worrying trends brewing and with the economy getting smaller it may only be a matter of time before the dole queues start rising again.

“Young people in particular are struggling to get their careers off the ground…ministers must step up job support before unemployment starts rising again otherwise help will come too late for too many people.'
The UK unemployment rate of 8 per cent compares favourably with the Eurozone average of 11.2 per cent, and that of the USA (8.3 per cent).

Meanwhile the ONS figures also showed that growth in regular weekly pay, excluding bonuses, was up 1.8 per cent on the year.