The number of job benefit claimants has fallen by more than 2,000, new figures show.

In Barking and Dagenham there were 4,409 residents registered for the Job Seekers Allowance as of July, compared with 6,432 for the same period last year.

The drop is in line with an overall decline in unemployment nationwide, new statistics revealed today, said to be the steepest annual fall in a quarter of a century.

Unemployment in London came down by 59,000 in the period from April to June this year – equivalent to 1.6pc of the economically active population.

Secretary of state for work and pensions, Iain Duncan Smith, has said coalition government reforms to the welfare system are responsible for the positive turn around.

“In the past, many people in our society were written off and trapped in unemployment and welfare dependency. But through our welfare reforms, we are helping people to break that cycle and get back into work,” he said.

The unemployment rate is now down to 6.4%, the lowest since late 2008, with the number out-of-work falling by 437,000 over the past year.

Youth unemployment has also seen the largest annual fall since records began 30 years ago, plummeting by 206,000 young people.

Barking and Dagenham has 11,200 unemployed residents out of a total population of more than 190,000 people, according to latest figures from March.