The number of people out of work and claiming benefit rose in April, the 13th increase in the last 14 months.

The claimant count was 945,500, up 7,700 on March, and up 106,300 on a year earlier. It is now at its highest since June 2003.

This is 3% of the workforce, unchanged from last month.

The total number of people unemployed rose by 44,000 over the three months to March to stand at 1.59m. This is up 177,000 on a year earlier. The unemployment rate is now 5.2%, up from 5.1% a month earlier.

The number of vacancies was 598,700, down 4,100 from the previous quarter.

The number of people in full-time employment was 21.56m in the three months to March 2006, up 85,000 from the three months to December 2005.

Jaime Brandwood, analyst at UBS, said: “Unemployment is still not a massive problem in the UK, compared with Continental Europe. It obviously could become a problem if it goes on rising like this.”