Unemployment has fallen for the second successive month, suggesting for the first time that the number of people out of work may have peaked. At 2,461,000, the jobless figure for the three months to September this year is marginally – 8,000 – below that recorded in the previous three months. These "rolling averages", from the Office for National Statistics suggest that unemployment may even have peaked, for now, in June at 2,470,000.

That would bolster expectations, raised by more optimistic surveys of business confidence, that the economy as a whole has turned a corner, and will return to growth by the end of the year. Even if unemployment does start to rise again, the pace of the increase seems likely to be much more moderate than in the earlier phase of this downturn.