Unemployment across the county has risen by nearly 1,500.

In the latest figures published on Budget Day, the combined jobless total for Kent and Medway stood at 34,192, up 1,498 over the previous month.

The number of people in Medway claiming jobseeker’s allowance went up 275 to 6,635 (4.2 per cent of the workforce).

Across the rest of the county, unemployment was 27,557, up 1,223, and 3.3 per cent of the workforce.

Nationally, the figures soared by 177,000 to 2.1 million.

On the day Alistair Darling is expected to confirm the dismal state of the UK economy, with the biggest national debt since the Second World War, the national jobless numbers rubbed salt in the wound.

They show the biggest quarterly rise since the recession of the early 1990s.

The claimant count - the number of people claiming jobseeker’s allowance - soared by 73,700 to 1.46m.

The unemployment rate has reached 6.7 per cent, which is the highest since the Government came to power in 1997.