The unemployment situation in the UK is as bad, if not worse, as what was seen during the 1980s, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) has claimed.

Furthermore, it was discovered that the gap between people losing work through redundancies or other factors and securing a new job was now wider than at any stage in the last recession of the 1990s.

In the first 12 months of the current recession, unemployment figures rose by 30 per cent.

This is in contrast to the 22 per cent increase recorded in the 1990s and the 29 per cent growth seen in the 1980s.

And in April, unemployment reached a 12-year high of 2.261 million.

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: "The picture for jobs and growth is already bleaker than the last recession and is looking much more like the deep recession of the 1980s every day."

In an earlier report, the TUC predicted that job losses will continue until autumn 2010.

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