18,000 redundancies were found in local government has cuts to public sector began to be felt.
Unemployment now stands at 2.5 million or 7.9%, although those claiming benefits dropped slightly by 1,2000 during November.
Dr John Philpott, chief economic adviser at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), said that the drop was a surprise.
"The limited comfort in the latest jobs figures comes in the form of another slight fall in the number of people claiming jobseeker’s allowance and a tiny increase in job vacancies," Philpott said. "But the remainder of the ONS statistical release reads as if it was scripted by the Grinch who stole Christmas":
Ian Brinkley, associate director of The Work Foundation, said that it would be an exaggeration to say the rise in unemployment represented a double dip recession.
The fall in employment, hitting women more than men, and rise in unemployment shown by the Labour Force Survey are small, comparing the three months to October with the previous three months.
"The bigger concern is that we have still seen no turn-round in full-time jobs."
Nigel Meager, director of the Institute for Employment Studies, pointed to the rise in part-time work.
"The figures also highlight the amount of spare capacity in the labour market, and the number of people working part-time because they could not find full-time work is now at the highest level since records began, standing at 1.16 million," Meager said. "The growth in those working in temporary contracts because they couldn’t find permanent work also continued, growing by 23,000 over the quarter to reach 592,000."
