Britain’s unemployment rate rose to 4.9 per cent in the May-July 2026 period, up 0.2 percentage points from a year earlier, according to official figures released Tuesday.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the number of unemployed people aged 16 and over reached 1.8 million, an annual increase of 83,000.
The employment rate slipped by 0.1 percentage points to 75.1 per cent in the latest quarter, reports Anadolu.
Despite the decline, the total number of employed individuals rose by 243,000 over the year, bringing the figure to 34.5 million.
Economic inactivity among those aged 16 to 64 fell by 0.1 percentage points both year‑on‑year and quarter‑on‑quarter to 20.9 per cent. The total inactive population stood at 9.1 million, up 12,000 compared with last year.
Redundancies reached 114,000, an increase of 10,000 over the same period.
