BoE’s Blanchflower says jobs data could get much worse

The latest British jobs numbers are very bad and could get worse still, Bank of England policymaker David Blanchflower told Reuters on Wednesday.

Earlier, official figures showed the number of people out of work and claiming unemployment benefit rose by a record 138,400 in February. The wider ILO measure of unemployment, meanwhile, rose above 2 million for the first time since 1997, equating to 6.5 pecent of the workforce.

"These numbers are truly terrible," said Blanchflower, a labour market expert who has long been warning that unemployment was set to rise sharply.

"The worry is that this is all going to get much worse and we need to do something about it."