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The news could make more people opt to learn more about the stock market as a way of earning extra money.
According to new data from the Office for National Statistics, the number of people claiming jobseeker's allowance increased by 131,000 between September and November.
In November, a further 77,900 lost their jobs, taking the jobless total to 1.16 million.
Alan Clarke of BNP Paribas commented: "This is a very rapid pace of job shedding.
"It is still very early days in this recession and there is plenty of bad news in the pipeline."
Among those making jobs cuts recently was the luxury clothing firm Burberry which announced the loss of 290 jobs yesterday (January 20th).
Howard Archer, chief UK economist at Global Insight, said unemployment is set to rise above two million very soon.
