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[yump] 13/11/2008 16:34

"During Prime Minister's Questions Mr Brown said that despite higher unemployment, Labour had created three million jobs since coming to power"

How can a government actually create jobs ?!

Presumably he must mean the pen-pushers and box-tickers that multiplied like a virus to measure the NHS, the school system and anything else that the control freakery required ;-)

[whiterussians] 12/11/2008 15:54

Unemployment reaches 11-year high
Unemployment has risen to its highest level in 11 years, according to official figures.

By Jon Swaine
Last Updated: 2:30PM GMT 12 Nov 2008

The number of people out of work has climbed to 1.825 million - the most since November 1997, according to the Office for National Statistics.

An extra 140,000 people were out of work in the three months to September, pushing the unemployment rate up by 0.4 per cent to 5.8 per cent and prompting economists to predict that the jobless total would exceed 3 million as the economic downturn worsens.

The ONS also found that the number of people claiming Jobseeker's Allowance increased by 36,500 to 980,900 last month - the largest rise since 1992.

The figures came as further signs of the British economy's deterioration. Soon after, Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England, announced that the country is entering a deeper recession that had previously been thought, suggesting more lay-offs will follow.

On Tuesday more than 5,000 job cuts were announced by household names including Virgin Media, Yell and GlaxoSmithKline.

Vicky Redwood, an economist from the consultancy Capital Economics, called on the Bank to respond to the figures by further cutting interest rates, which already sit at a 54-year low of 3 per cent.

She said: "Much worse is to come – we expect unemployment to peak in 2010 at around 3.3 million. The rapid deterioration in the labour market highlights the need for interest rates to fall much further."

John Philpott, the chief economist at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development said: "The UK just waved goodbye to a decade long flirtation with full employment. These figures are bad enough and will sadly be followed by further bad news in the coming months."

Brendan Barber, the General Secretary of the TUC, warned that the number out of work was rising by more than 1,000 a day. He said: "The signs are that redundancies are coming even faster since these figures were collected. Countering unemployment must be public policy priority number one."

Tony McNulty, the employment minister, said: "Every time a worker loses their job it is a personal tragedy and the Government is doing everything it can to get those people who have become unemployed back to work as quickly as possible.

Gordon Brown has signalled that the Government will announce tax cuts in the pre-Budget report, which is expected next week, in an attempt to stimulate the economy back into growth and save jobs.

The Conservatives have announced their own plan to help companies retain and hire staff. They propose waiving up to £2,500 in a firm's national insurance contributions if the company hires someone who has been out of work for three months.

During Prime Minister's Questions Mr Brown said that despite higher unemployment, Labour had created three million jobs since coming to power. David Cameron, the Conservative leader, replied: "Only this Prime Minister could be quite so smug on the day 140,000 people have lost their jobs."

The ONS figures are based on the International Labour Organisation definition of unemployment, which includes both those claiming out-of-work benefit and those who are not, despite being unemployed.

The figures also showed that graduate jobs are drying up, with unemployment among 18 to 24-year-olds reaching a 13-year high of 579,000.