Unemployment reaches 1.82m

News Article - 12 November 2008
Category:

The UK's unemployment rate has reached 5.8 per cent - or 1.82 million people - new official figures have shown.

It is the highest number of people out of work in eleven years and marked an increase of 0.4 per cent, or 140,000 people, over the third quarter of the year, according to the Office for National Statistics.

The figure reflected a rise of 0.5 per cent in the rate over the year, equating to 182,000 people.

There were 980,900 claimants in October, itself a seven-year high, up by 36,500 from September and 154,800 over the year.

"The dole queue is now growing by 1,000 people a day - each one a human tragedy of wasted potential," said Brendan Barber, general secretary of the TUC.

"And the signs are that redundancies are coming even faster since these figures were collected. Countering unemployment must be public policy priority number one."

The last time there were more people out of work was in December 1997, when the figure was 1.87 million, while the claimant count is at its highest since a total of 990,900 in March 2001.

Article keywords:

---

More industry news

• Think tank warns UK may have already slipped back into recession
• Growing demand for HR staff in technology and international sectors
• Boosting business growth a ‘priority’ to avoid Eurozone slowdown
• HMRC launches alternative disputes pilot scheme this week
• December employment statistics disregard gloomy recruitment predictions
• Eurozone manufacturing PMI shows modest improvement
• UK scores highly for economic governance by ratings agency
• Government launches two-year project focusing on manufacturing sector
• Burden of regulation on UK businesses ‘too high’

Back to news home page »