article_snippet: At the same time, inflation fell to just 0.5 per cent in December.
article_snippet: Unemployment, meanwhile, has continued to fall down to a near seven-year low – with the jobless total dipping by 97,000 in three months to December, taking the total number of people out of work to 1.86 million.
article_snippet: This is down by almost half a million on a year ago.
article_snippet: The number of people claiming jobseeker's allowance has also been cut – falling by 38,600 in December to 823,000, the 27th consecutive fall and the lowest since the summer of 2008.
article_snippet: The UK now has the third lowest unemployment rate in the European Union at 5.7%, behind Austria – on 4.9 per cent – and Germany, where only 4.8 per cent are out of work, according to data from the Office for National Statistics.