UK unemployment rate jumps to 4.2%

Britain’s unemployment rate has risen to 4.2%, as the number of workers in payrolled jobs falls and more people leave the jobs market.

The latest healthcheck on the UK’s labour market shows that the unemployment total rose by 85,000 in the December-February quarter, to 1.44 million.

That takes the jobless rate to its highest level since last summer, just before the UK began sliding into a shallow recession.

The number of people in employment fell by 156,000 in the quarter to 32.98 million, as firms cut back on their workforce.

But not all those people joined the ranks of the unemployed; another 150,000 people were classed as ‘economically inactive’ in the quarter, taking the number neither in work nor looking for a job to 9.404 million.

And in March, the number of payrolled employees shrank by 67,000, to 30.3 million.

Via The Guardian