Unemployment in Scotland has fallen again and remains close to a historic low, according to new figures published today.

The number of people unemployed has gone down on both methods of calculating the total.

On the traditional calculation method - the number of people on Jobseekers' Allowance - the monthly total fell by 500 and by 13,700 over the year to 74,300.

That unemployment rate of 2.7% remains close to the historical low, said officials.

On the other method of calculation, based on figures from the Labour Force Survey, unemployment in Scotland went down by 6000 to 129,000 over the three months to July.

This was 7000 lower than the same period last year and an unemployment rate of 4.8%, down 0.2% on the previous quarter and 0.4% over the year.

Meanwhile, the number of people in employment reached 2.542million, which is 12,000 higher than the previous quarter and 83,000 higher than a year ago.

The figures reflect a general trend across the UK with the jobless total nationwide falling by 28,000 in the three months to July to 1.65m, the lowest for more than a year.

And the number of people claiming Jobseeker's Allowance fell for the 11th month in a row.

It was down by 4200 from the previous month to 852,900.

But there was less good news on the wages front with public sector pay growing at just 2.7% during the quarter, its slowest rate since May 1998.

The figures will fuel the growing levels of discontent among public sector employees over pay settlements, which this week led unions to warn of an increasing threat of co-ordinated strikes by millions of workers.