UK job-related benefit claims spike by nearly 25% in May

LONDON (AP) - The number of people in the U.K. claiming job-related benefits increased by a monthly 23.3% in May to 2.8 million, according to official data released Tuesday.

The level of the claimant count as measured by Britain's Office for National Statistics is also 125.9% higher than in March, the month in which the country was put into lockdown as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

The claimant count includes both those people who are employed with low income or hours and those who are actually unemployed.

Further indications of the lockdown's impact on the British labor market came with the news that the number of people on payrolls fell by 2.1%, or 612,000 people, between March and May in 2020.

The statistics agency also said the number of weekly hours worked in the three months to April 2020 was 959.9 million, down a record 94.2 million from the previous year. The statistics agency also revealed that in the three months to April, total pay fell in real terms for the first time since January 2018.