North East unemployment up to 6.6% - data shows Chancellor must do more

While national unemployment has reached 4.5%, the highest level in over three years, the North East is nearly half as bad again at 6.6%.

Hours worked, pay, vacancies are all down.

"Today's figures throw into stark and depressing relief the scale of the issues facing families and businesses and act as a reminder that the Chancellor must extend more help, " said Cllr Robin Ashby, who speaks on employment matters for Newcastle Liberal Democrats..

"Liberal Democrats warned at the last City Council meeting that by prematurely ending the Furlough scheme, this Government is potentially leaving thousands to face ruin.

"Responsibility sits squarely on the Chancellor's shoulders. Instead of dismissing lost jobs as not viable, he should be working day and night to protect people's livelihoods.

"Generations will judge whether this Government has taken every conceivable step to protect people's' livelihoods and futures, or, echoing our bitter memories of the past in the North East, tossed them on the unemployment pile marked non-viable."