UK unemployment rate rises to 4.8%: official data

'Redundancies have reached a record high,' says report 

London: Britain's unemployment rate has jumped to 4.8 per cent as the coronavirus pandemic destroys a record number of UK jobs, official data showed Tuesday.

The reading for the third quarter compared with an unemployment rate of 4.5 per cent for June-August, the Office for National Statistics said in a statement.

"The employment rate has been decreasing since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, while the unemployment rate is now rising sharply," the ONS said.

"Redundancies have reached a record high," it added.

Since the start of the UK pandemic in March, the number of payroll employees has dived by 782,000, the data showed.