MORE than 800,000 jobs have been lost during the Covid pandemic, alarming figures have revealed.
Unemployment rose to 4.9 per cent in October despite £280billion in bailout schemes.
This was up from 4.8 per cent in the previous month.
And redundancies hit a new high of 370,000 between August and October, the Office for National Statistics said.
By October, the number of employees on payroll was down 819,000 on the pre-pandemic figure.
But there were 547,000 job vacancies in the UK, a rise of 110,000 on the previous quarter.
The figures are for shortly before England’s second national lockdown.
As a result, ministers extended the furlough wages scheme to March.
Employment minister Mims Davies said: “It’s been a truly challenging year for many but, with a vaccine beginning to roll out with more perhaps to follow and the number of job vacancies increasing, there is hope on the horizon for 2021.”
But Shadow Chancellor Anneliese Dodds slammed Chancellor Rishi Sunak, tweeting that: “His irresponsible decisions have cost jobs.”
And Laura Stewart-Smith, of insurance giant Aviva, said: “This latest data brings the impact the pandemic has had on the UK labour market into sharp relief.”
