Big rise in unemployment expected

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Latest jobless figures will be published by the Office for National Statistics, just hours before Chancellor Alistair Darling stands up in the Commons to outline his financial package.

Analysts have predicted that the number of people claiming jobseeker's allowance jumped by over 120,000 in March following a massive increase of 138,000 in the so-called claimant count in February.

Total unemployment, including those not eligible for benefits, passed the two million mark last month for the first time in 12 years and is expected to continue rising for the rest of the year. Business groups and unions now expect the wider measure of unemployment to reach at least three million next year because of the effects of the recession.

The TUC warned that mass unemployment was the "biggest possible drain" on public finances, stressing that jobs should be at the heart of the Budget.

General secretary Brendan Barber warned that if the number of jobseeker's allowance claimants increases by a million over the next year it will cost taxpayers more than £250 a second.

"Beneath the latest unemployment statistics lies an unfolding human tragedy - not just homes repossessed and families uprooted but horizons downgraded, aspirations diminished, the risk of another generation being lost to the scourge of mass unemployment.

"Every person on the dole costs the rest of us £8,100 a year, and that's before you consider the wider price to be paid, of rising crime, declining public health and of leaving communities to fend for themselves."

Unions and employers have called on the Government to introduce subsidies for short-time working to help avoid redundancies.

Mr Barber added: "I want to see the Government show the same determination in protecting working people from the worst of the recession as it has in protecting banks from the greedy excesses of their bosses."