By Gokhan Ergocun
ISTANBUL (AA) - The UK unemployment rate rose to 4.6% in the three months from February to April, marking its highest level since July 2021, according to official data released Tuesday by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The figure represents a 0.2 percentage point increase compared to the previous three-month period. It also exceeded market estimates, which had forecast an April unemployment rate of 4.5%.
The number of unemployed people stood at approximately 1.6 million as of April.
Despite the rise in unemployment, the employment rate inched up by 0.1 percentage points to 75.1%, with the total number of employed individuals reaching 34 million.
Meanwhile, the economic inactivity rate -- which measures the proportion of the working-age population that is neither employed nor actively seeking work -- declined by 0.2 percentage points to 21.3%.