Trade unions have called for “decisive action” from the government after new figures showed unemployment was growing at a rate of 20,000 people per month.
A report from the Office for National Statistics today revealed that 1.67m people were out of work in June – up 60,000 since March.
Adam Lent, head of economic and social affairs at the TUC, said: “Workers will expect the government and the Bank of England to take decisive action to stop unemployment growing further still.
“If they fail to do so, unemployment will rise significantly in 2009, and inactivity will carry a high economic and social price.
“Unions are looking for action to boost demand we urge the Bank of England to cut interest rates and the government to take the cap off public sector wage increases.”
The redundancy rate was 4.9 per 1,000 employees in the three months to June, up from 4.3 per 1,000 employees in the three months to March.
There were 634,900 job vacancies in the three months to June, down 47,400 from the previous three months.
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