LONDON, Feb. 19 (Xinhua) -- British unemployment rate rose to 7.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2013 after a surprising drop to 7.1 percent in the previous three months, official figures showed on Wednesday.

　　Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures showed there were 2.34 million unemployed people aged 16 and over between October and December 2013.

　　The employment rate in the period stood at 72.1 percent, which was up 0.3 percentage point from July to September 2013 and up 0.6 from a year earlier.

　　The ONS said the number of people claiming jobseeker's allowance in January fell by 27,600 to 1.22 million.

　　"It is unsurprising that employment growth is now dipping following last month's surprisingly strong numbers," said Gerwyn Davies, the CIPD's labour market adviser.

　　"The continuing gap between pay and CPI inflation also reiterates our findings that employees and employers do not expect the rate of pay rises to increase significantly in 2014," Davies added.

　　However, he was worried about the latest quarterly figures on output per hour which fell by 0.3 percent.

　　"Overall, while the immediate jobs outlook remains relatively bright, it looks as though the vast majority of workers will at best experience a standstill in real earnings, with the greatest challenges being faced by the rapidly growing number of self-employed people," Davies said.

　　According to the ONS figures, total pay rose by 1.1 percent in the last three months of 2013, compared with October to December 2012.

　　Average weekly earnings, excluding bonuses, rose by 1.0 percent by the same period. The earning growth still lagged behind inflation rate.

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