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The Conservative Party in a statement said the following:

Today's unemployment figures show that Labour’s policies just aren't working. Unemployment is at a 16 year high, whilst the number of jobs continues to fall.

There couldn't be a worse time to impose a new jobs tax, which will threaten the recovery and cost tens of thousands of jobs.

New figures released today show:

•     * Unemployment at a 16 year high. Unemployment now stands at 2.5 million, an increase of 43,000 on the last quarter and the highest level since 1994. The unemployment rate now stands at 8 per cent.
•     * Employment falls by 89,000. Employment fell by 89,000 over the last quarter to reach 28.82 million.
•     * Record economic inactivity. 8.16 million working age people are classed as economically inactive – the highest number since records began in 1971, and a rise of 110,000.
•     * 2.3 million economically inactive want a job. 2.34 million economically inactive people want a job but do not appear in the headline unemployment figures.
•     * Youth unemployment rising again. 929,000 young people aged 16-24 are unemployed. One in five young people is unable to find a job.
•     * Nearly three quarters of a million long-term unemployed. 726,000 people have been unemployed for 12 months or more, an increase of 89,000 over the last quarter.
•     * 1 million part-time workers want a full-time job. 1.05 million part-time workers want a full-time job but cannot get one – a record high.
•     * Half a million fewer jobs in the economy. There were 30.75 million workforce jobs in December 2009, down 119,000 over the quarter and down 533,000 on a year earlier.
•     * Over 5 million on out-of-work benefits. In August 2009 the number of people claiming key out of work benefits was 5.08 million, up 675,400 from August 2008

Labour came to power in 1997 promising to tackle unemployment. But 13 years on and almost every indicator available shows how things have got worse under Labour. Once again Labour isn’t working:

    * Over one in four working age adults doesn’t have a job, with the number of ‘economically inactive’ people – people who have dropped out of the jobs market altogether – at a record high.
    * Labour have consistently failed to meet their full employment target of 80 per cent of adults being in work. And the number of private sector workers who were born in the UK is now lower now than it was in 1997.
    * By the end of the recession youth unemployment had hit a record high, with one in five young people unable to find a job.
    * We have a record number of ‘underemployed’ – people who want to work more hours but can’t find any suitable work.

Labour's big government approach to jobs has failed. Their flagship programme for the unemployed – the New Deal – treats people like statistics rather than human beings. Funding is given to welfare to work providers on the basis of the processes they follow, rather than the outcomes they achieve.

As a result, many unemployed people are going round and round the system without ever finding sustainable work. The former Labour Minister for Welfare Reform, Frank Field, who was forced to leave the government by Gordon Brown in 1998, has described the performance of Labour’s New Deal for Young People as "derisory" and has called for the government to scrap the scheme.

And now Labour’s big government approach is threatening our recovery. Their decision to impose a jobs tax – a 1 per cent hike in both Employer and Employee National Insurance from 2011 onwards – threatens to kill the recovery and increase unemployment. Labour have identified £11 billion of waste in government, but they do not plan to start dealing with it until 2011.

The logic of their big government approach has driven them to a position where they will continue wasting money while putting up taxes on people and businesses. This makes no sense – which is why their plans are opposed by one hundred of Britain’s businesses leaders, who together employ over one million workers.