The rate of UK unemployment rose to 3.6% in the three months to September, up from 3.5% in the previous three months, the Office for National Statistics said. Darren Morgan, director of labour and economic statistics at the Office for National Statistics (ONS), said: “The proportion of people neither working nor looking for work has risen again.
“Since the onset of the pandemic, this shift has largely been caused by older workers leaving the labour market altogether, but in the most recent quarter the main contribution has actually come from younger groups.
“August and September saw well over half a million working days lost to strikes, the highest two-month total in more than a decade, with the vast majority coming from the transport and communications sectors.
