Britain slides towards 2 million unemployed

Press, 24 April 1980, Page 9

Britain slides towards 2 million unemployed

■ NZPA-Reuter London ) - More British adults are - unemployed than at any r other time since World War > Two. ; Figures released by the Government yesterday • showed that 1,393,000 adults s were out of work on April • 10. Taking into account sea- • sonal factors, this is a re- ■ cord for post-war Britain. 1 The total of registered un- ' employed in the country passed 1.5 million this month 1 for the first time since • August, 1978, when school--5

leavers helped to swell the figure. The April figure of 1,552,900 jobless'was also the highest April figure since before the war. Economic forecasters predict that the figure will rise further—possibly to two million by next year — as the economy slides into recession.

The Government has forecast a sharp drop in output this year, which will add to the list of unemployed as demand for industry’s goods falls away.

Present Government estimates are an unemployment total of 1.8 million by next January. According to “The Times,” this estimate is almost certainly too low, as it was calculated before the most recent pessimistic forecasts for the economy. As a further indication of the depressed state of Britain’s labour market, notified job vacancies fell this month by 12,300 to 168,500. However, this figure represents only about a third of actual vacancies.