Almost 700,000 jobs have been lost over the past six months, due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
According to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics, the UK unemployment rate now stands at 4.1 per cent.
The number of UK workers on payrolls fell by 695,000 between March and August.
There were 2.7 million people claiming benefits due to being unemployed in August, an increase of just over 120 per cent since March.
Young people have been particularly affected, with the ONS citing a 'large decrease' in the number of young people aged 16-24 in employment, while unemployment for young people has increased over the last quarter.
ONS director of economic statistics Darren Morgan said: “Some effects of the pandemic on the labour market were beginning to unwind in July as parts of the economy reopened.
“Fewer workers were away on furlough and average hours rose.
“The number of job vacancies continued to recover into August, too.
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“Nonetheless, with the number of employees on the payroll down again in August and both unemployment and redundancies sharply up in July, it is clear that coronavirus is still having a big impact on the world of work.”
May to July figures show an increase in the unemployment rate; but despite this increase and an increase in the number of redundancies, the employment rate is still not falling.
Though still large, the reductions in total hours worked both on the year and the quarter are smaller than last month, with the May to July period covering a time when some of the lockdown measures started to be eased.
The UK employment rate was estimated at 76.5 per cent, 0.4 percentage points higher than a year earlier and 0.1 percentage point higher than the previous quarter.
The UK unemployment rate is up 0.3 percentage points higher than a year earlier and 0.2 percentage points higher than the previous quarter.
