Unemployment has risen again. Figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show the UK’s unemployment rate rose to 5.1 per cent in October – the highest joblessness rate since 2021. Payrolled employment fell too by 38,000 in a single month, meaning 187,000 jobs have now been lost since last November, in a blow to Rachel Reeves’s bizarre claim that her tax-raising measures are not harming employment. 

Vacancies fell too after having crept up slightly in the previous month’s figures – suggesting we may not be at the bottom of this jobs slump yet. Liz McKeown, director of economic statistics at the ONS said, ‘the fall in payroll numbers and increase........

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