The number of people claiming jobseeker’s allowance in the Liverpool city region has risen by almost 1.6% over the past month to 54,925.
Across the North West the number of claimants was up 2.7% to 195,886 and across the UK 2.3% to 1.58m.
All the six city region local authority areas saw a rise with the exception of Halton where the claimant number fell by two to 4,259.
The biggest rise was recorded in St Helens where the figure rose 4.6% to 5,472.
Liverpool’s claimant count was up 0.8% to 21,206, Wirral’s rose 2.3% to 9,122, Sefton saw a 1.3% rise to 8,837 and Knowsley was up 1.7% to 6,029.
Across the UK the outlook for the UK’s economic recovery darkened as a surge in jobless youths triggered the largest increase in unemployment in nearly two years.
The country’s jobless rate stood at 2.51m or 7.9% between May and July, the Office for National Statistics said, after the total number of unemployed increased by 80,000.
This was the largest quarterly increase in unemployment since the three months to August 2009, while economists had expected a rise of around 70,000.
Within these figures, the number of unemployed 18 to 24-year-olds surged by 77,000 to 769,000, the ONS said.
The increase in the number of people claiming jobseeker’s allowance was at its highest level since January 2010.
Average earnings increased by 2.8% between May and July, up by 0.1% over the previous month, with weekly wages now averaging £464.
While this was the largest rise since April 2010, the increase in average wages was driven by higher bonuses in the financial sector and still falls far behind the high rate of inflation, which stood at 4.4% in July and increased to 4.5% in August.
The figures come as a report from think-tank IPPR warned that the UK faces a “”ong and difficult” path back to full employment, with up to two million jobs needed to be created to return to pre-recession levels.
The number of employed people fell between May and July by 69,000 to 29.17m, driven by public sector job cuts, which was the biggest fall since the quarter to March 2010.
The number employed in the public sector fell by 111,000 between March and June to reach 6.04m, the largest fall since records began in 1999.
