Unemployment has fallen and employment has risen. Unemployment in Britain fell by 5,000 in the three months to April as the economy's return to growth created more jobs. Figures released by the Office for National Statistics showed that the jobless total using the internationally agreed yardstick dipped to 2.51 million. Employment rose by 24,000 during the quarter, beating City expectations of a small fall in the number of people in work. The ONS said there were now 29.76 million people in employment, up 432,000 on a year ago. Jobs continue to be shed from the public sector, with employment down by 22,000 in the latest three months for which data is available, the three months to March 2013. But an expanding private sector created 46,000 additional jobs in the same period. The ONS said the UK's jobless rate remained unchanged between the latest quarters at 7.8% but that it was down 0.4 points on a year earlier. The government's alternative measure of unemployment - the number of people claiming jobseeker's allowance - fell by 8,600 to 1.51 million in May, the ONS said. Higher bonus payments led to an increase in the rate of growth of average earnings. Although still running below the current 2.7% inflation rate, earnings were 1.3% higher between February and April than a year earlier. That compared with a 0.6% increase in the three months ending in March. James Knightley, economist at ING, described the data as "encouraging," adding that "when coupled with recent better business survey figures and rising consumer and business confidence suggests we should be looking for a positive GDP figure in the region of 0.4 to 0.5% quarter-on-quarter for the second quarter of 2013." Vicky Redwood, UK analyst at Capital Economics said: "The latest data bring slightly better news on the labour market, although it is still looking rather weaker than a few months ago. After falling earlier this year, employment managed to rise by 24,000 in the three months to April. A rise in private sector employment offset a fall in the public sector jobcount. Seperate figures released by the Institute for Fiscal Studies showed that British workers have suffered unprecedented pay cuts of 6% in real terms since the financial crisis began five years ago. Paul Johnson, director of the IFS, said household incomes and spending had fallen deeper and stay lower longer than in any previous downturn since the Great Depression.