16 Oct 2014
New figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that unemployment in August this year dropped to 6%, the lowest level since 2008.
The number of unemployed people fell by 538,000 from the previous year, and stands at 1.97 million, which is the biggest improvement since ONS records began in 1972. The number of individuals in work stands at 30.76 million, a yearly improvement of 736,000.
Prime Minister David Cameron said: ‘The biggest-ever fall in unemployment in history, taking it below 2 million, is great news. Our plan is working, but there’s still much more to do.
According to the ONS, there are still 9.03 million people aged 16 to 64 who are ‘economically inactive’ in that they are not available to work or not actively seeking work, which is a quarterly increase of 113,000 but a yearly drop of 46,000.
But the Trades Union Congress (TUC) general secretary, Frances O’Grady, warned: ‘Pay has fallen off a cliff and shows little sign of recovering any time soon. Ordinary households are not sharing in the recovery and are facing their seventh consecutive year of real wage cuts’.