Jobless figures 'on the rise'

15/10/2008

Unemployment in the UK has gone up, new official figures show.

According to the government, 30,000 more people lost their jobs last month, bringing the overall total to 1.79 million.

This follows the 81,000 rise marked by the last set of government unemployment statistics in July.

In response to the trend, ministers said that they would be making an extra £100 million available in order to help out-of-work people develop new skills to make them more employable.

The general economic downturn caused by the credit crunch is a major factor behind the job losses - with cash-strapped firms looking to trim staff numbers in order to save money.

Finance, construction and retail are thought to be particularly hard-hit.

Speaking to the BBC, John Philpott at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development commented: We'll see hundreds of thousands of jobs being lost, and unemployment is likely to rise, certainly above two million. The question is how much further than that."

Official figures show that, for April-June, economic growth in the UK stood at zero per cent.

Negative growth - two successive three-month periods of which are the technical definition of recession - is expected later this year.

Tags; Budgeting Advice, Job loss, Young Family Finances,

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