Unemployment rate level, jobless total rises slightly

The UK’s unemployment rate remained at 7.8% in the three months to January 2013, the lowest since 2009 until last month, yet the number of people out of work rose fractionally by 7,000, to reach 2.52m.
Wed, 20 Mar 2013
The UK’s unemployment rate remained at 7.8% in the three months to January 2013, the lowest since 2009 until last month, yet the number of people out of work rose fractionally by 7,000, to reach 2.52m.

The number of people employed rose by 131,000 in the period compared with the three months to October 2012, to reach 29.73m.

The Office for National Statistics’ (ONS’s) Labour Market release notes that while there was a rise of 1.2% in total pay, this was equivalent to a pay cut with inflation measured by the Consumer Prices Index at 2.7% across 2012.

The ONS also finds that the sector with the largest number of job vacancies in the three months to February 2013 was retail, at 71,000, or one in seven of the 494,000 vacancies across industry.

Other sectors hiring strongly were human health & social work activities (69,000 vacancies), accommodation & food service activities (47,000), professional scientific & technical activities (42,000) and education (38,000).

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