Unemployment nears two million

Jobless figures continue rising as the large number of redundancies feed into official figures. Under the Labour Force Survey (LFS) count, unemployment rose by 146,000 to 1.97 million in the final quarter of 2008 against 1.83 million the previous quarter.

And with tens of thousands of redundancies announced in January, the next figure published later this month looks set to be over the two million mark. The increase in numbers also pushed the unemployment rate up to 6.3% up from 5.8%. The LFS count includes people who are looking for work but not eligible for benefits and is the government’s preferred measure.

The number of jobless men rose by 106,000 to 1.18 million and their unemployment rate was up to 6.9% from 6.3%. Unemployment among women rose by 40,000 to 790,000 and their unemployment rate went up to 5.6% from 5.2%.

Unemployment under the claimant count, which only includes those drawing Jobseeker’s Allowance, rose by 73,800 to 1.23 million in January. The unemployment rate under this count was up to 3.8% from 3.6%.

Unemployed men on benefit numbered 918,000 and the unemployment rate was up to 5.3% from 5.0%. The number of jobless women was up to 315,000 and their jobless rate rose to 2.1% from 2.0%.