LONDON (Reuters) – Layoffs in Britain hit a record high during the third quarter as the unemployment rate jumped, according to official data that showed the jobs market declined rapidly before finance minister Rishi Sunak made a U-turn on COVID support measures.
Redundancies rose by a record 181,000 in the three months to September to reach an all-time high of 314,000, the Office for National Statistics said.
The unemployment rate rose as expected to 4.8%, the highest rate since the three months to November 2016.
(Reporting by Andy Bruce, editing by David Milliken)
