Britain's unemployment rate stay at 7.8%

The number of unemployed people increased to 2.52 million between November last year to January 2013, an increase of 7,000 from the previous three months, according to official figures released on Wednesday. The unemployment rate for November 2012 to January 2013 was 7.8 percent of the economically active population, unchanged from August to October 2012, said the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The number of people claiming Jobseeker's Allowance in February fell by 1,500 to 1.54 million, the lowest level since June 2011, said the ONS. The employment rate for those aged from 16 to 64 was 71.5 percent in the three months to January, up 0.3 percentage points from August to October last year, with 29.73 million people in employment aged 16 and over, an increase of 131,000 employment. The number of young people aged 16-24 without a job rose to 993,000 over the three months, taking the youth unemployment rate to 21.2 percent. However, the rise of number of unemployment people is another bad news for British finance minister George Osborne who is going to deliver his 2013 Budget during noon time as he is facing a bleak economy, hard-to-fufil deficit cut target and dropping poll ratings. At the same time, the ONS figures also show that the average weekly earnings in Britain excluding bonus payments rose by 1.2 percent in three months comparing with the same period a year earlier. "In cash terms, average weekly earnings excluding bonus payments were 442 pounds in January 2013, before taxes and other deductions from gross pay; this is up from 438 pounds a year earlier," said the ONS. It held that there continued to be a cut in the real value of pay, as inflation measured by the Consumer Prices Index was 2.7 percent between January 2012 and January 2013. "The annual growth in weekly wages excluding bonuses has been continuously below inflation since August to October 2009."