Unemployment in UK set to soar
Yet more data from the office of National statistics has highlighted the ongoing fall in employment numbers and the number of people claiming benefits. The employment figures show that for the three months to October 2008 the rate was down 0.4 to 74.2% of the work age population of the UK which is a figure only beaten back in 2000 when the rate was 74.1%. The actual number of people in employment as of October 2008 was 29.3 million down 115,000 over the quarter but up 57,000 on the year.
However, more alarming for government is the claimant count which reached 1.0 7 million in November 2008 which is up over 250,000 in the last calendar year. This shows the ongoing fall in the rate of employment as well as the expected increase in benefit claimants over the next 12 to 24 months. So not only will the government see tax income fall substantially but benefit payments seem set to mushroom over the next couple of years.
These are the forecasts which have seen the government invest tens of billions of pounds over the last few months in a last-ditch bid to refloat and re-energise the UK economy.
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