COVID-19 : UK experiences biggest unemployment as since 2016

Britain's unemployment rate was the highest for nearly five years in November over three months, when coronavirus cases began to rise for the second time, and most countries partially returned to lockdown.

According to official figures, the redundancy touched an unemployment rate of 5.0%, the highest since mid-2016, although this increase was slightly weaker than economists' forecasts.

There were few signs of a limited recovery in December, when lockdown measures were relaxed, though a decline is likely to begin in early 2021 as a strict lockdown closed schools and closed most non-essential businesses to the public gave.

Tax data for December showed a 52,000 increase in the number of employees on the company's payroll from November, but there were 828,000 fewer employees on payroll than in February.

Economists said the data showed that the job market was better than many forecasts.

Unemployment has been kept low by the government's job retention scheme, which supported 2.4 million jobs as of October 31, down from a peak of 8.9 million in May.

The program is Britain's most expensive COVID-19 funding measure, valued at 46.4 billion pounds ($ 63 billion) by mid-December, and scheduled to end on 30 April.

"This crisis has lasted longer than any of us - and every job lost as a result of it is a tragedy," the Finance Minister fad said after Tuesday's data. "We are throwing away everything we have found in support of businesses, individuals and families."

Tej Parikh, chief economist at the Institute of Directors, urged the craze to increase support for jobs in its March 3 budget.

"The latest lockdown has put further pressure on firms with troubled balance sheets, which means more jobs may be lost in the coming months," said Parikh.

The number of people in employment fell to 88,000 by the end of November, the smallest drop since the start of the epidemic, and a Reuters poll estimated by economists to be over 100,000.

Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey said this month that he believed the underlying unemployment rate was high, as the official definition excludes people without work who temporarily lost their job search due to the epidemic Has been postponed.

The growth rate in the data grew by 3.6% yearly, the largest increase in more than a year.

But the ONS said the increase was largely reflected in how job cuts and part-time workers working in low-wage sectors suffered the brunt of job cuts and lost pay. It was said that the wage increase was less than 2%.