THE NUMBER of people claiming unemployment related benefits in the North rose by 1,100 to 30,300 last month, marking a four-year high. Some 65 per cent of the people signing on for the first time previously worked in the construction sector
The unemployment rate for the three months to September was 4.1 per cent, virtually unchanged from the rate of 4.2 per cent recorded in the previous quarter.
The Northern Ireland rate remains below the UK average which jumped to 5.8 per cent in the period July to September.
There are now an estimated 1.82 million people out of work in the UK, which is the highest figure on record for more than a decade.
The figure was published as the Bank of England forecast Britain faces its deepest recession since the early 1990s.
In its bleakest quarterly inflation report since 1993, Mervyn King, the bank's governor, gave the green light for the government to use tax cuts or public expenditure increases to help limit the recession, and the official forecasts indicated interest rates had some way further to fall.
The pound sank on the gloomy outlook, dropping 2.9 per cent to a six-year low of $1.4939 against the dollar; it lost 2.5 per cent to a fresh record low of €0.8356 against the euro and fell 5.6 per cent to Y141.81 against the yen.
The bank's central growth forecast suggested the year-on-year drop in national income would hit 1.9 per cent in the second quarter of next year and that for 2009 as a whole, the economy would sink 1.3 per cent.
Northern Economy Minister Arlene Foster warned that "economic conditions may get worse before they get better".
