was abruptly halted on Tuesday morning (January 21) for some “bad” breaking news.
spoke out live on the ITV breakfast show as a breaking news banner popped up on-screen, announcing: “Some breaking news here. It’s bad breaking news for the Chancellor Rachel Reeves and also for working people. The number of people without jobs has unexpectedly risen.
“Official figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that the rate of unemployment increased to 4.4% in the three months to November. The fall in employment is the most since the height of the pandemic, with 47,000 more people no longer on the payroll.
“And there’s more bad news with a warning that the number of job vacancies has also fallen.”
Worried fans took to X – formerly Twitter – to share their thoughts on the announcement, with one writing: “When do we announce the recession?”
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Ranvir Singh announced ‘it’s bad’ on GMB (Image: ITV)
Someone else echoed: “‘Unexpected’ for who? Rachel Reeves was warned about this during the budget.”
And a third social media user said: “Unexpectedly??? Are you serious? You think that when the country is heading for recession unemployment will reduce?”
The number of payrolled employees now stands at 30.3million.
However, wage growth has risen again, with average regular pay at 5.6% in the three months to November and outstripping Consumer Prices Index inflation by 3.4%.
Ranvir paused the live programme to issue the news (Image: ITV)
ONS director of economic statistics Liz McKeown said: “Pay growth picked up for a second consecutive period, again driven by strong increases in the private sector. Real pay growth, which excludes the effects of inflation, increased slightly.
“The number of employees on payroll, drawn from tax data, fell in the three months to November.”
She added: “Alongside this, the number of vacancies fell again, for the 30th consecutive period, although the total number remains slightly above its pre-pandemic level.”