This article is from the source 'bbc' and was first published or seen on . It will not be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/business/7882745.stm
The article has changed 15 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
| Version 5 | Version 6 |
|---|---|
| UK jobless total at 1.97 million | UK jobless total at 1.97 million |
| (10 minutes later) | |
| UK unemployment rose to 1.97 million between October and December, but less than expected, figures show. | |
| The jobless number climbed 146,000 for the three-month period, data from the Office for National Statistics showed. | |
| For December, the number of those getting jobseeker's allowance added 73,800 to reach 1.23 million. | For December, the number of those getting jobseeker's allowance added 73,800 to reach 1.23 million. |
| The internationally recognised unemployment rate reached 6.3%, the highest since 1998, in a further sign of the weakening economy. | The internationally recognised unemployment rate reached 6.3%, the highest since 1998, in a further sign of the weakening economy. |
| Many analysts had forecast that unemployment could reach two million for the three-month period - which would have been the highest since 1997. | |
| Prime Minister Gordon Brown is meeting business leaders later to discuss how to help. | Prime Minister Gordon Brown is meeting business leaders later to discuss how to help. |
| 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. | |
| 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' | |
| FROM THE TODAY PROGRAMME More from Today programme | |
| A local employment partnership scheme has been launched to get people back into work. | |
| 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 says figures on the wider measure of unemployment - which also includes people not claiming benefits - only cover the three months up to December, so do not include the most recent job losses. | |
| However, our correspondent says the total is expected to rise above two million 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. | |