The Government is to spend another £100m to help people back to work.

UK unemployment has hit a 17-year high, surging 164,000 to 1.79 million in the three months to August 2008, according to figures released today.

The number of people claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance rose 31,800 in September, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) said.

The bleak figures follow reports in The Times that the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) is set to make nearly 10,000 job cuts. In a bid to save £900m, positions will go in the prison, probation and court services sectors, the publication said.
 
To help people back to work, the Government has announced plans to spend an additional £100 million to assist unemployed people and those facing redundancy to re-train and develop their existing skills.

There are some 600,000 vacancies across the country to be filled, DWP revealed – it did not disclose, however, the main sectors or areas offering employment.

TUC General Secretary, Brendan Barber, described the unemployment statistics as “extremely bad news.” He said: “These figures do not even show the effects of the bank crash. After years when we could take reasonably full employment for granted, we are now in for grim times. This is the next big challenge for [the] Government.”

Confederation of British Industry (CBI) Deputy Director-General, John Cridland, commented: “These figures are worse than we expected. They suggest the fallout from the slowdown in the economy is being felt by individuals faster and sooner than previously thought.”

The CBI predicts that unemployment could rise another 330,000 to 2.12m by the end of 2009. Many economists are taking an even gloomier view with some predicting that unemployment could rise to 3m by the end of the 2010.

According to the DWP, 29.4 million people were in work in the period June to August, whilst the employment rate stood at 74.4%.

By Natasha Piscitelli