'Encouraging' employment data, but TUC warns against complacency

The latest UK unemployment figures provide a degree of encouragement, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) has suggested.

Data released by the Office for National Statistics today indicated that 2.49 million people are currently out of work, slightly below the 2.5 million predicted.

And although the level for the three months to October is the highest since March 1995, the quarterly increase of 21,000 was the smallest in almost a year and a half.

The TUC noted that government investment has helped prevent joblessness from spiralling out of control, but general secretary Brendan Barber added that more needs to be done to tackle the problems that remain.

’It would be madness to cut the resources dedicated to helping the unemployed, as some are suggesting, when the medicine is only just beginning to make an impact,’ he remarked.

According to the ONS, the unemployment rate of 7.9 per cent remained unchanged over the period from August to October.
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