Unemployment rate is revised upwards by 138,000 – from 3.9% to 4.5% – amid fears MILLIONS more will be on the dole queue by Christmas
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Unemployment has risen by 138,000 after official figures were revised – amid fears that millions more will be on the dole queue by Christmas.
The jobless rate for June to August has been shifted upwards from 3.9 per cent to 4.5 per cent after experts concluded the way data are collected was masking the scale of the problem.
The Office for National Statistics data revealed the fall which came before the end of the Government’s broad coronavirus job protection plan. Economists had expected the rate to rise more slowly to 4.3 per cent.
It was up from 4.1 per cent in the three months to July. The number of people in employment fell by 153,000 in the June-to-August period compared with a median forecast for a fall of 30,000 in a poll for the Reuters news agency.
However, separate tax office data showed the number of staff on company payrolls rose by a monthly 20,000 in September, slightly reducing the total number of job losses by that measure since March to 673,000.
The Bank of England has forecast that the unemployment rate will hit 7.5 per cent by the end of the year as the government scales back its £50billion job protection scheme and replaces it with a smaller programme in November.
BoE Governor Andrew Bailey yesterday repeated his warning that the economy could prove weaker than the central bank’s forecasts.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak during a press conference at 10 Downing Street in Westminster yesterday evening
Jonathan Athow, deputy national statistician at the ONS, said: ‘The latest monthly tax numbers show that the number of employees on the payroll was little changed in September.
‘However, in total there were still nearly 700,000 fewer than in March, before the lockdown.
‘Our newly adjusted survey figures show that in the latest period almost half a million fewer people were in work than just before the pandemic, while almost 200,000 others said they were employed but were currently not working nor earning any money.
‘Since the start of the pandemic there has been a sharp increase in those out of work and job hunting but more people telling us they are not actively looking for work.
‘There has also been a stark rise in the number of people who have recently been made redundant.’