Two measures of unemployment rates in Britain have suggested different pictures of the state of the UK economy.

The claimant count measure of those receiving unemployment benefits fell by 6000 to 945,600 in August, representing 3.1 per cent of the workforce.

But the internationally-accepted Labour Force Survey data from the Office for National Statistics was up 13,000 over the three months to July, at five per cent of the workforce. It was the first rise since the September to November 2000 data was published.

With manufacturing in recession and unions warning of 250,00 job losses, the statistics showed that 119,00 jobs have already been lost in manufacturing during the year to July.

The employment level was 28.16 million during May to July, 13,000 up on the previous three months. But without a 27,000 rise in the number of public sector jobs, overall employment would have fallen. The figures indicate how public spending is becoming increasingly important to driving UK economic growth.

In other data, the growth rate for average earnings dropped slightly.

Figures showed the growth rate was 4.6 per cent in the three months to July 2001. It was a fall of 0.1 per cent on the revised June rate.

Earnings in the service sector rose by 4.4 per cent while in the manufacturing sector they were rising by 4.8 per cent. Public sector earnings rose significantly faster, at 5.6 per cent, compared with 4.3 per cent in the private sector.

The ONS was unable to publish the figures on job vacancies. It blamed "distortions" to data from May onwards for the problem after the introduction of the Employer Direct system for handling vacancies introduced by the Employment Service.