Unemployment rate remains at 3.7% but job vacancies fall for eighth month in a row

Record number of people outside the job market due to long-term sickness

The rate of unemployment in the UK has not changed in the three months to January (PA)

Unemployment in the UK has not changed despite a fall in job vacancies and a rise in redundancies, new figures have revealed.

The Office for National Statistics said Britain’s unemployment rate held at 3.7 per cent in the three months to January, remaining the same as the previous three months.

However, the data revealed a 51,000 drop in the number of job vacancies to 1.2 million, while the redundancy rate edged higher.