Picture copyright Getty Pictures
Picture copyright
Getty Pictures
People who find themselves at residence on furlough don’t rely in the direction of the jobless numbers
The variety of individuals claiming unemployment profit within the UK soared final month, the primary full month of the coronavirus lockdown.
The claimant rely in April went up by 856,500 to 2.097 million, the Workplace for Nationwide Statistics (ONS) mentioned.
Separate ONS figures confirmed UK unemployment rose by 50,000 to 1.35 million within the three months to March.
The unemployment fee was estimated at 3.9%, barely up on the earlier quarter, the ONS mentioned.
Earlier than the lockdown started, employment had hit a document excessive.
The jobless figures solely cowl the primary week of the lockdown and the full is more likely to worsen sharply within the coming months.
Jagjit Chadha, director of the Nationwide Institute of Financial and Social Analysis, informed the BBC: “We will moderately count on unemployment to rise in a short time to one thing over 10% – one thing we’ve not seen for the reason that early 1990s.”
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People who find themselves at residence on furlough aren’t counted within the jobless whole.
Nonetheless, the full variety of weekly hours labored confirmed its largest annual lower in 10 years.
Estimates based mostly on returns for particular person weeks counsel that this fall was largely brought on by the lower in hours within the final week of March, with a a lot smaller lower within the earlier week, the ONS mentioned.
Within the last week of March, the full variety of hours labored was abut 25% fewer than in different weeks throughout the quarter.