Jobless total highest in 12 years
Unemployment has soared to a 12-year high of more than 2.2 million after a record number of people lost their jobs in recent months, gloomy new figures showed today.
The jobless total increased by 232,000 in the three months to April to reach 2.26 million, the worst figure since the end of 1996.
While the number of people claiming jobseeker’s allowance has increased for the 15th month in a row and is at its highest total since the summer of 1997.
The worrying figures from the Office for National Statistics also showed that thousands of university graduates are being left jobless and in debt.
Trades Union Congress general secretary Brendan Barber says the latest figures prove we're no where near the end of the recession.
He said: “Economists may argue about whether we are now out of recession and into recovery, but in the real world of Britain’s workplaces people are still losing their jobs and finding it harder and harder to get new ones.
“Unemployment is now at its highest level since Autumn 1996 and it will take years, not months, to recover.
"If we are to avoid the 10 per cent unemployment rates of the 1980s and 1990s it is imperative the Government continues to invest in tackling unemployment."
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But Work and Pensions Secretary Yvette Cooper says the Government is taking the damning figures very seriously.
She said: “Today’s figures show the importance of providing extra help for people and families coping with unemployment.
“That is why we are investing £5 billion extra into helping jobseekers - creating jobs for young people and those in the hardest-hit communities, delivering training and skills, and providing 16,000 extra frontline staff in Jobcentres across the country.
“We will not turn our backs on people who need help. Nor will we stand by while people slip into the kind of long-term unemployment or worklessness that scarred families in past recessions."
The number of people classed as economically inactive, including those who have given up looking for work, increased by 92,000 in the latest quarter to 7.89 million, a fifth of the working age population.
Alan Tomlinson of UK insolvency practitioners Tomlinsons says the Government simply isn't doing enough to pull Britain out of the recession.
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He said: "From where I'm standing things are as bad now as they were a few months ago....The Government claims it is pressurising the banks to make funds more readily available but we've yet to see any evidence of this.
"Unemployment will continue to rise until at least early 2010, even if the rate at which it increases begins to stabilise. We're not out of the woods yet."
Margaret Eaton, chairman of the Local Government Association, said: “Every single person being made redundant or having difficulty making ends meet should contact their council to make sure that they are getting all the advice, support and benefits they’re eligible for."
More than 300,000 people were made redundant in the three months to April, an increase of 36,000 on the previous quarter and the highest total since records began in 1995.
