THE Government was last night warned to “pause the fanfare” despite further encouraging news on the jobs front with unemployment continuing to fall.

The number of people out of work in the North-East in the three months to October fell by 8,000 to stand at 123,000, an unemployment rate of 9.7 per cent.

It has now fallen by 23,000 over the course of the year.

An even bigger drop was experienced in Yorkshire and Humberside which saw the most dramatic fall of 29,000 in the past quarter.

The picture in the region mirrored that nationally with the jobless total falling by 82,000 in the last quarter to 2.51m. That was the biggest reduction since the spring of 2001.

There were also more people in work in the North-East - 1,117,000 - a rise of 18,000 over the quarter and 46,000 over the year.

However TUC general secretary Kevin Rowan said: "While the fall in unemployment and slight growth in the employment rate is welcome we ought to pause before calling in the fanfare.

"This week's census has confirmed that most new jobs are part-time or self-employed, a large proportion are temporary, casual employment.

"With nearly one in ten claiming job seekers allowance, long-term youth unemployment continuing to grow and the highest levels of under-employment we've ever seen there is clearly still a long way to go before anyone can legitimately claim the economy is healing.”

Bishop Auckland Labour MP Helen Goodman said: “The small fall in unemployment in the region is good news but unemployment is still higher than when the Conservative-led Government took office.

“There are also thousands of people who are underemployed – working part-time when they really want to be working full-time.”

The North-East Chamber of Commerce said employment and unemployment rates were continuing to head in the right direction, but warned that skills shortages in some sectors, such as engineering, needed to be addressed.

The figures from the Office for National Statistics showed that employment jumped by 40,000 to 29.6M in the last quarter, the highest figure since records began in 1971 and up by half a million on a year ago.

However the number of people employed in the public sector fell for the 12th consecutive quarter, by 24,000 to 5.7m, the lowest since 2002.

Prime Minister David Cameron said there was still no room for complacency, while also pointing out that the Coalition had created more than a million extra private sector jobs.

: The Government announced it was extending the Youth Contract wage incentive, which gives employers up to £2,275 if they take on an unemployed young person.

From next week it will be available for employers taking on any 18 to 24-year-old in Britain who has been claiming benefits for six months, three months earlier than at present.