Unemployment is on the rise in the UK due to the financial hardship of Covid-19 – but Cumbria has seen a fall in figures this month.

According to the Office for National Statistics, unemployment rose nationally to 4.8 per cent in the three months to September. The rise from 4.5 per cent has been attributed to redundancies in anticipation of an end to the Job Retention Scheme.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak extended the furlough support until March 2021 last week.

Current figures suggest that 1.62 million people are unemployed. Young people are among the hardest hit with 174,000 less 16 to 24 year-olds in employment between July and September.

In contrast, Cumbria saw 12,725 people out of work in October, a reduction of 570 on the previous month.

According to the Office for National Statistics this is because young people are more likely to be working for the hospitality industry which is closed in full lockdown.

Pete Moran of Cumbria Law Centre said that although the situation in the county is more positive, time will tell. He said: “Some redundancies have been softened by the continuation of the furlough scheme, the courts have starting moving again on housing cases, this is the big acid test for us. The backlog is very big and the new cases coming through are considerable.

“Most people that we represent at court with cases of housing are in employment but they have relatively high living costs such as transport to work and don’t have that protection of housing benefits or Universal Credit.

“We do really detailed analysis of what people bring in and spend, it’s very clear to us that a lot of our clients literally have no spare income. To be on 80 per cent of that is a real challenge."

Mr Moran said: “In March the difference for us is going to be how many jobs are on life support but it’s welcome that some people will get support through the Christmas period.

“A number of people at Christmas do seasonal work or see peaks of work, some people will really rely on that.”

“We think the situation is still deteriorating for workers but it has been softened to some degree with the furlough scheme.”

He added that the furlough scheme will give a degree of security to businesses through the second lockdown.