UK unemployment hits highest rate in five years in fresh blow for Rachel Reeves – UK Times

Unemployment in the UK has increased to its highest rate in five years, according to official figures.

The unemployment rate rose to 5.2% in the three months to December, up from 5.1% in the three months to November, the Office for National Statistics said on Tuesday.

The figure is the highest seen since January 2021, when the country was in a national lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Government is “taking active measures” to get more people into work, a minister has said in response to new unemployment figures.

Stephen Kinnock, a health minister, told Times Radio: “We know that we had the best growth of all the G7 European countries last year, and on unemployment, I think we’ve seen something like 440,000 new jobs created in the economy.”

Pointing to investment in apprenticeships and other schemes to get people back into work, he added: “We’re taking active measures to get more people back into work.

“But of course, there’s still a long way to go, given the appalling economic inheritance that we got in July 2024.”

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