Surprise rise in jobless

Unemployment rose unexpectedly in the three months to August, according to official figures.

According to the Labour Force Survey (LFS) count, it rose by 5,000 to 1,479,000. The LFS count includes people not eligible for benefit and is the government's preferred measure.

The unemployment rate fell to 5.0%. There were 884,000 unemployed men (a 5.5% rate) and 595,000 women (a 4.4% rate).

The claimant count is again at its lowest level since September 1975. It fell by 1,900 to 929,800 - an unemployment rate of 3.1% of the workforce.

The number of male claimants fell to 696,700 (a 4.3% rate) but the number of female claimants rose to 233,100 (a 1.7% rate).

Vacancies averaged 626,300 in the three months to September. There were 2.4 vacancies per 100 employee jobs, unchanged from a year ago.

Manufacturing continued to haemorrhage jobs. In the three months to August they were down by 3.4% on a year earlier at 3.49 million.

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: "We cannot take the labour market recovery for granted when over 10,000 jobs a month are still being lost from manufacturing."