A year earlier, the unemployment rate stood at 3.4 percent.
In September 2016, the number of unemployed persons were 2.04 million, a decrease of 230 thousand (-10.1 percent from a year earlier). The number of employed persons were 64.97 million, an increase of 580 thousand (+0.9 percent from the previous year).
The labour force rate grew 0.5 percent from a year earlier to 67.01 million and population aged 15 and over was flat at 110.80 million.
The labour force participation rate increased by 0.3 percentage points to 60.5 percent from 60.2 percent in September 2015.