A year earlier, the unemployment rate was higher at 3.6 percent.
The number of unemployed persons decreased by 200 thousand or 8.7 percent to 2.11 million from the previous year. While the number of employed persons increased by 900 thousand or 1.4 percent compared to January 2015 to 63.99 million.
The labour force participation rate increased by 0.7 p.p. to 59.7 percent from 59.0 percent in January last year.
The jobs-to-applicants ratio was 1.28 percent, up from 1.27 in December, hitting its highest level in 24 years.