UNEMPLOYMENT has come down slightly in news that will bring relief to UK households and the Government.
Britain’s jobless rate hit 4.9% in the three months to April, official figures reveal.
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This is down from 5% in the three months to March, and lower than experts had predicted.
Wage growth remained unchanged at 3.4% in the three months to April, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has said.
But the number of job vacancies dropped again, falling by 19,000 between March and May.
It comes after job vacancies fell to their lowest levels in five years last month in a major blow to workers and jobseekers.
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ONS director of economic statistics Liz McKeown said: “Payroll numbers continued to fall over this period, with new recruits at their lowest level in five years.
““Overall employment was little changed, with some signs of workers moving into self-employment.”
Meanwhile, separate figures revealed earlier this month that the number of households in which no adults have ever worked has hit a fresh high.
There were 298,000 households where at least one adult is of working age but nobody has ever been employed – a rise of 40,000 since last year, according to the ONS.
