The UK’s unemployment rate has hit 5.4%, the lowest it has been since 2008, the Office of National Statistics said. 1.77million people were out of work between June and August.

That figure is down 79,000 when compared to the last quarter. The number in work then rose by 140,000. This brought the employment rate to 73.6%. The highest rate since records began in 1971.

Ian Brinkley, chief economic adviser at Lancaster University’s The Work Foundation, however is concerned about Britain’s economic productivity and how it is still below it’s potential. Mr Brinkley said, “The employment gro

 wth pause that we saw in the first half of 2015 is over – job growth resumed over the three months to August compared with the previous three months, driven by more young people and older workers in employment. Looking ahead, we can expect productivity to grow faster and employment to grow more slowly than they have in recent years as the labour market starts to return to normal. But a full recovery in productivity could be long and slow. Even with the recent boost we are still 15 per cent below where we would have been had the pre-recession productivity trend continued, and manufacturing productivity still gives serious cause for concern.”

The Chancellor, George Osborne tweeted that ‘New stats show highest rate of employment in our history at 73.6%, youth unemployment rate at 7 year low & pay rising strongly at 3%.’