UK's robust jobs market dented amid big fall in employment

Brexit uncertainty 'finally taking toll' as pay rises slow and unemployment increases

The number of people in work fell by the largest margin in four years in August as the uncertainty created by the Brexit talks weakened Britain's previously robust labour market.

The employment figures dropped by 56,000 in the three months to the end of August from the previous quarter after a shake-out of high street retail jobs and redundancies across much of the manufacturing sector.

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) jobless rate is a measure of unemployment adopted in a number of countries to reflect the state of the labour market. It is expressed in percentage terms, as a proportion of working-age people who are out of work but want a job and are actively looking for one.