Unemployment keeps rising

Unemployment is at its highest level since December 1994, latest official figures show. Under the Labour Force Survey (LFS) count, unemployment rose by 53,000 to 2.5 million in the first quarter of 2010 compared with the previous quarter at the end of 2009. As a result the jobless rate rose to 8.0% from 7.8%.

The rise was biased towards men whose numbers were up by 48,000 to 1.55 million. The male unemployment rate rose to 9.2% from 8.9%. The number of jobless women rose by 5,000 to 963,000 and their unemployment rate was up to 6.7% from 6.6% previously. The LFS count includes people who are looking for work but are not eligible for benefits, and is the government’s preferred measure.

The claimant count, which only includes those claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance, posted the third monthly fall in a row. In April, it fell by 27,100 to 1.52 million and the unemployment rate fell to 4.7% from 4.8% the previous month.

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber warned the coalition government that it would be a huge mistake to cut support for the unemployed, particularly the Future Jobs Fund, “a policy that has prevented unemployment scarring a generation of young people as it did in the 1980s”.