A quiet Canary Wharf Underground station, at the start of the first full week of the four week national lockdown in EnglandThe jobless rate in Britain rose to 4.8% between July and September, up 0.9% from the same period a year earlier, the Office for National Statistics said.
Redundancies increased by a record 181,000 on the quarter to reach an all-time high of 314,000, while the number of people in work fell by 247,000, the biggest increase since the first quarter of 2010, the ONS said. But a surge in cases of COVID-19 and hospitalizations over October has brought a second partial lockdown across most of the country through November. Rishi Sunak, the chancellor of the Exchequer, was forced to back down and extend the government's furlough scheme for several more months, when it became apparent that the economy was heading for another contraction.
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