UK Unemployment Rate Rises to 8.4%

The unemployment rate in the UK rose to a 16-year high of 8.4% in the 3 months through November 2011. Unemployment benefits claims also rose for the tenth consecutive month to 1.6 million. The number of unemployed rose by 118,000…

Published January 18, 2012, 7:46am ET · 1 min read

The unemployment rate in the UK rose to a 16-year high of 8.4% in the 3 months through November 2011. Unemployment benefits claims also rose for the tenth consecutive month to 1.6 million.

The number of unemployed rose by 118,000 in the three-month period and the number of people with jobs increased by 18,000. The country’s conservative government said that “the increase in employment showed private companies created jobs at a faster pace than the government eliminated them,” according to Bloomberg News. If you say so …

The government expects private employers to hire the workers that the government is firing as it tries to lower its fiscal deficit. But layoffs and plant closings make that a dubious hope at best.

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Paul Ausick

Paul Ausick has been writing for 247Wallst.com for more than a decade. He has written extensively on investing in the energy, defense, and technology sectors. In a previous life, he wrote technical documentation and managed a marketing communications group in Silicon Valley.

He has a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Chicago and now lives in Montana, where he fishes for trout in the summer and stays inside during the winter.

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