Between June and August 2011, 2.57 million people were unemployed, a rise of 114,000 on the previous quarter and an increase of 113,000 compared with the same quarter last year. The overall unemployment rate is 8.1%, the highest since 1996.
2.57 million people are now unemployed. 991,000 of them are young people - a record high for the UK. This amounts to 21.3% of people under 25, making it the highest youth unemployment rate since comparable records began in 1992.
This is a blow for the government. David Cameron has repeatedly made the assurance that the private sector would pick up the slack as public sector jobs were lost, but these figures tell a different story.
In an attempt to take the sting out of this bad news story, the coalition pre-empted the figures this morning with the announcement of new 'work academies, which will offer a mix of training, work experience and a guaranteed interview to tens of thousands of unemployed people. The programme is, for obvious reasons, targeted at the under-25s.
The full statistical bulletin from the ONS is available online here.
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