That was a 1.2% higher level than a year ago and 0.6% higher than in the previous quarter.

On the claimant count of people claiming unemployment benefits, unemployment hit 2.6 million in December.

In the three months to November, there was a sharp increase in unemployment while the employment rate continued to fall, the ONS said. 

During the period, 398,000 fewer people had jobs – the largest increase since December 2009, during the global financial crisis.

The proportion of the workforce on furlough increased to 16% during November but fell back to 11% by the end of December, possibly due to seasonal increases in work for the Christmas period.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak has predicted unemployment will peak at 7.5% in the second quarter of this year.

James Reed, chairman of the Reed recruitment giant, said: “Today’s ONS statistics support the Chancellor’s November prediction that the economic emergency has only just begun.”

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He said, however, that Reed had seen a pick up in companies hiring recently. Last week it was up 4% on a year ago, with IT, telecoms, education and social care seeing some growth.

There was also good news from the ONS as it reported pay growth of an annual 3.6%, bouncing back from the 1.3% pay cuts seen in April to June.

Source – https://www.standard.co.uk/

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