The number of jobless people in the UK could climb above two million for the first time since 1997, when figures are published later.
UK unemployment reached 1.97 million between October and December, official figures show.
Between September and November 2008 unemployment rose to 1.92 million, up 131,000 from the previous three months.
The jobless number climbed 146,000 for the three month period, data from the Office for National Statistics showed.
Following a wave of job losses, including 27,000 at Woolworths, a sharp rise is also expected in the number of people claiming jobseeker's allowance.
For December, the number of those getting jobseeker's allowance added 73,800 to reach 1.23 million.
The prime minister is meeting business leaders later to discuss how to help.
The internationally recognised unemployment rate reached 6.3%, the highest since 1998, in a further sign of the weakening economy.
Executives from Sainsbury's, the Royal Mail, Whitbread, Centrica, National Express and Travelodge are expected to attend Downing Street for the first meeting of the National Employment Partnership.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown is meeting business leaders later to discuss how to help.
The companies, as well as NHS and local authority leaders, will agree to advertise all non-specialist vacancies through the Jobcentre Plus network and to start offering more apprenticeships.
'Scarred communities'
On Tuesday, Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell said: "We know times are tough and we will do all we can to help people who lose their jobs find another as quickly as possible to prevent the long-term unemployment which has so scarred communities in the past from taking root."
FROM THE TODAY PROGRAMME More from Today programme He said businesses were already helping thousands of people into work through a local employment partnership scheme and would later pledge to help 200,000 more into jobs over the next year.
Travelodge chief executive Grant Hearn said the scheme helped to ease the process of recruitment.
"This has enabled us to work quickly and efficiently across the UK with local job centres to find recruits," he said.
Richard Exell, from the Trades Union Congress (TUC), told the BBC he hoped the plan would prompt a joint effort to address unemployment.
"We need measures to help people who've lost their jobs, but also... measures to help people who are at risk of becoming unemployed," he said.
"We'd like to see for instance some extra help to support firms that introduce short-time working instead of making people redundant."
BBC business correspondent Nils Blythe explained that figures on the wider measure of unemployment - which also includes people not claiming benefits - will only cover the three months up to December so will not include the most recent job losses.
However, he said he expected the total to rise above two million, with that figure likely to increase further once the latest redundancy programmes are captured in official statistics.
Redundancies mounting
A TUC study said that while unemployment in the UK was lower than the European average, it was now increasing twice as fast as the average across Europe.
The UK has one of the lowest unemployment rates in Europe at 6.1%, compared with a European average of 7.7%, the union said.
But between December 2007 and October 2008, the UK had the third sharpest increase in unemployment, behind Spain and Ireland, it added.
Over the same period, unemployment in France was found to go up by just 0.1% and fell 0.8% in Germany.
TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: "The UK began the global recession with a relatively strong jobs position, but our advantage is beginning to disappear as redundancies mount."
Are you affected by this news? Have you recently lost your job, or started claiming jobseeker's allowance? Have you managed to find a new job in the past few weeks?
Send your comments using the post form below.
In most cases a selection of your comments will be published, displaying your name and location unless you state otherwise in the box below.
