WORLD (Enmaeya News) - November 11, 2025

The unemployment rate in the UK rose to 5% for the first time in four years, signaling a clear slowdown in the national economy.

Official data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed that the number of job seekers in the three months ending September reached 1.79 million, the highest level since September 2020, when the country was under COVID-19 lockdown.

The figures also revealed that more than a quarter of the unemployed had been out of work for over 12 months, marking the first time this has happened in three years. During the same period, there were 134,000 redundancies, the highest number since the first quarter of 2021.

This rise in unemployment comes alongside a decline in wages to their lowest level in three years, with the average regular pay growth slowing to 4.6% in the three months to September — the weakest rate since February–April 2022.

Liz McKeown, Director of Economic Statistics at the ONS, said: “Taken together, these figures clearly indicate a weakness in the UK labor market”.

Economic experts also warned that the increase in unemployment reflects business concerns over potential tax rises in the upcoming budget.