Redundancies hit record high as hundreds of thousands lose jobs

Unemployment hit 4.8%, as more than 300,000 redundancies were registered in the three months to September.

More people were made redundant between July and September than at any point on record, according to new official statistics, as the pandemic laid waste to large parts of the economy.

Around 314,000 redundancies were registered during the three months, up by 181,000 from the quarter before, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

The data suggests that unemployment in the UK reached 4.8% in the three months to September, with 1.62 million people being unemployed.

It is an increase of 0.7 percentage points on the quarter before, and 0.9 percentage points from a year ago. Meanwhile, around 33,000 people were dropped from payrolls last month, adding to the 782,000 reduction in payrolls since March this year, when the pandemic struck.

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