A MEASURE of the number of people claiming unemployment benefits in Britain soared to its highest level since 1996 in April, the first full month of the government’s coronavirus lockdown, data published yesterday showed.

The claimant count rose by 856,500 — the biggest ever month-on-month leap — to 2.097 million, a 69 percent increase, the Office for National Statistics said.

The surge would have been even sharper without a government program to pay 80 percent of the wages of workers put on temporary leave by their employers, who do not count towards the unemployment total.

“While only covering the first weeks of restrictions, our figures show COVID-19 is having a major impact on the labor market,” the ONS’s deputy national statistician, Jonathan Athow, said.

“Vacancies were sharply down too, with hospitality again falling steepest,” Athow said.

Britain’s unemployment rate could hit 10 percent in the April-June period, the country’s budget forecasters have said, even with millions of workers shielded by the government’s scheme to pay their wages while they are only temporarily laid off.(SD-Agencies)