Fact check: The unemployment rate has risen from 4.2% to 4.5% since the election
A disagreement broke out between leader of the Opposition Kemi Badenoch and Labour MP Jake Richards at Prime Minister's Questions (PMQs) on May 14.
When quizzing the Prime Minister, Mrs Badenoch said: 'Yesterday we learnt that unemployment is up 10% since the election.'
After PMQs had ended, Mr Richards said in reference to Mrs Badenoch's statement: 'That figure is completely and utterly incorrect.'
The number of unemployed people in the UK has risen from about 1.47 million in the three-month period before the election to 1.61 million in the latest three-month period.
That is a rise of almost exactly 10%.
However in the same period, the number of people who are employed has risen by about 14.5%.
In addition to this, the most commonly cited figure which people use when discussing unemployment is the unemployment rate, which has risen from about 4.2% to 4.5%.
There are two main ways of measuring unemployment in the UK. The most often cited figure is that for the unemployment rate, which is compiled by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The unemployment rate is calculated by dividing the number of unemployed people by the combined number of people over the age of 16 who are employed and unemployed.
The unemployment rate was just under 4.20% in the three months to the end of June 2024 – the last measurement before the general election. It has since risen to a little over 4.53% in the three months to March 2025 – the latest period for which data is available.
That is a rise of about 0.33 percentage points. When measuring differences between two different percentages, best practice is to use percentage points, rather than the percent change between the two figures. However the change between the two unemployment rates if measured in percentages rather than percentage points would be 8.06%.
Therefore, if Mrs Badenoch was referring to the unemployment rate, the 10% claim would have been inaccurate.
However, it is also possible to look at changes in the total number of people who are unemployed in the country.
The ONS data shows that the estimated number of unemployed people rose from 1,466,819 in the three months to June 2024 to 1,613,800 in the three months to March 2025.
That change is a rise of almost exactly 10% – 10.02% to be more precise. Using this figure Mrs Badenoch's claim was accurate.
It is however important to note that while the number of people who are unemployed has gone up, the number of people who are employed has also risen in the same period.
Between the three months to June 2024 and the three months to March 2025 the number of people in employment has risen from 33,489,184 to 33,975,463 – an increase of almost half a million, or 14.5%.
When contacted by the PA news agency, Mr Richards said: 'The only useful metric is about unemployment relative to employment.'
To be counted as unemployed, a person must be 'without a job, have been actively seeking work in the past four weeks and are available to start work in the next two weeks' or 'out of work, have found a job and are waiting to start it in the next two weeks'.
UK Parliament – Hansard, Wednesday 14 May 2025 (archived)
ONS – A guide to labour market statistics (archived)
ONS – Summary of labour market statistics (archived page and spreadsheet, see tab 1 columns D, E and H for the data used in this article)
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