According to the labour market figures released by the Office for National Statistics today, the working age employment and unemployment rates remain unchanged at 72.4 per cent and 7.8 per cent respectively. There were 28.91 million people employed in the last quarter of 2009 and 2.46 million unemployed.

The overall number of people aged 50 to state pension age in work fell by 16,000 (0.2%) in the three months to December 2009 over the previous quarter. Although there were 17,000 fewer men in the age group working, the number of women in work rose by 1,000.  The overall employment rate for this age group was 71.0 per cent.

The number of people working past state pension age has continued to grow.  There were 1.41 million working (12.1 per cent), up 10,000 (0.7 per cent) on the previous quarter.  In contrast to the trend among those aged 50 to state pension age, the increase includes both men and women.

During January 2010 there were 247,000 claimants aged over 50, up 55,100 over the year, (+ 28.7 per cent). At the end of 2009, 34.0 per cent of unemployed people over 50 had been out of work for more than a year, compared with 29.7 per cent of those aged 25-49.

The number of economically inactive people aged 50 to state pension age rose by 20,000 over the three months to December 2009, up 0.8 per cent over the previous quarter.  And although there was a rise in the number of economically inactive men in this age group, the number of economically inactive women fell. This pattern was also reflected over the previous year.