Total of unemployed women hits 1 million

More than one million women in Britain are now unemployed, the highest number since 1988.

With the Government's cuts in spending beginning to hit public-sector jobs, figures released yesterday showed that 31,000 more women found themselves out of work in the last quarter, taking the total to 1.02 million. According to data from the Office for National Statistics, overall unemployment fell by 9,000 to 2.45 million in the last quarter.

But Dr John Philpott, a chief economic adviser at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, warned that with the jobless rate for women reaching 7 per cent, the cuts were "already having an adverse impact on job prospects for women".

Brendan Barber, General Secretary of the TUC, said: "Female unemployment has been rising for over a year and hit a 22-year high this autumn. Women look likely to suffer rising joblessness for some time to come."