Trends in Britain’s labour market remained largely positive in the first month following the vote to leave the European Union, official figures showed yesterday.

The UK’s employment rate remained at a record high of 74.5% in the three months to July with a total of 31.8m people in work, an increase of 174,000 on the previous three months.

A total of 1.63m people are unemployed. a fall of 39,000 compared with the previous quarter and 190,000 down on the same period a year ago, representing a jobless rate of 4.9%.

However, the narrower count of those eligible to claim the Jobseeker’s Allowance jumped by 2,400 on a seasonally-adjusted basis to 771,000 between July and August, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.

Nick Palmer, ONS statistician, said: “These figures show continued labour market improvement, with the employment rate remaining at a record high and inactivity at a new record low.”

Claimant count figures in Suffolk and north Essex showed little change compared with July, although the arrival of the peak holiday season appears to have delivered a further boost to jobs in coastal resort areas.

In the Waveney district, the claimant count fell by 57 to 617 and the local unemployment rate by 0.1 of a percentage point to 0.9%.

Elsewhere in Suffolk, however, jobless rates remained unchanged.

Small falls in the claimant count were recorded in Babergh, down nine to 336 (a rate of 0.7%), Forest Heath, down 11 to 193 (0.5%), Ipswich, down 10 to 1,481 (1.7%), and St Edmundsbury, down five to 473 (0.7%).

Despite small increases in the count, the jobless rates were also unchanged in Mid Suffolk, up two to 357 (0.6%), and Suffolk Coastal, up 15 to 310 (0.4%).

The picture was similar in north and mid Essex, with the Tendring district seeing the biggest fall in the claimant, down 53 to 1,440, cutting the loca jobless rate by 0.1 to 1.9%.

A fall of 11 in Colchester, to 1,097, was also enough to nudge the rate down by 0.1, to 0.9%, while a fall of 22 in Chelmsford, to 848, left the rate unchanged at 0.8%.

Rates also remained unchanged in Maldon, where the count rose by eight to 222 (0.6%), and Uttlesford, where the total was unchanged at 194 (0.4%).

But in Braintree an increase of 23 in the claimant count to 802 pushed the rate 0.1 higher to 0.9%.