The number of jobless Britons fell in the three months to February, marking the first quarterly decline in almost a year.
The Office for National Statistics said the number of unemployed fell by 35,000 over the period to 2.65 million people.
That was the first quarterly decline since the three months to May 2011.
The unemployment rate stood at 8.3%, down from 8.4% in the three months to January. Market expectations had been for no change.
The ONS also revealed that the number of people claiming jobless benefits rose in March by the smallest monthly amount since December. The claimant count of people registered for unemployment benefits increased by 3,600 in March from February to 1.61 million. However, that was the highest total since October 2009
Analysts said that the latest jobs data are relatively encouraging overall and supportive to hopes that the economy has returned to underlying modest growth. But they warned that the labour market would deteriorate further before showing more signs of improvement.
