LONDON, Oct 24 (Reuters) – Britain’s unemployment rate held steady at 4.2% in the three months to August but the big picture remained of a softening Labour Market with the number of people in jobs falling again, according to statistics published on Tuesday.

The experimental figures included new data sources to help compensate for a falling response rate to the Office for National Statistics’ Labour Force Survey of households, which usually forms the basis of Britain’s job Market statistics.

The Bank of England is monitoring Britain’s labour market closely as it considers whether it needs to resume raising interest rates, having opted to keep them on hold in September after 14 hikes in a row.

Under the previous methodology, the unemployment rate had been reported as 4.3% for the three months to July.

Financial markets showed little immediate reaction to the news which followed other signs of a cooling labour market.

While the unemployment rate was steady, the number of unemployed workers rose by 74,000 in the three months to August, under the new methodology, the ONS said.

Employment fell by 82,000 during the same time frame, following a drop 133,000 in the three months to July which was a smaller decline than the previous estimate of 207,000.

The ONS said the new methodology included using jobs data collected by Britain’s tax office over a three-month period and changes to welfare claims as a proxy for measuring unemployment, also over three months, on top of the LFS survey findings.

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