UK Jobless claims drop, show strong employment numbers.

January 16, 2008 - Forex Economic News

News out of the UK today showed that the number of workers claiming Jobseeker's Allowance benefits decreased in December according to The Office for National Statistics. December registered 807,700 workers seeking unemployment benefits which was a drop of 6,400 workers from November and marked the fifteenth straight month of decline. December's total is the lowest number seen since June of 1975. Compared to last quarter, unemployed workers decreased by 13,000 and for the year unemployment has decreased by 29,000 workers. The number of employed workers in the UK rose by 263,000 workers for the year and increased by 175,000 since last quarter. The unemployment rate fell 0.1 percent from the last quarter and also has fallen 0.1 percent for the year to 5.3 percent. The number of workers employed in the three months to November was 29.36 million, the highest number recorded since 1971 which registers an employment rate of 74.7 percent for people of working age. At noon EST the GBP/USD pair was trading at 1.9622.

Tags: UK jobless claims, Office of National Statistics, GBP/USD--------- Blog index