GOVERNMENT figures vastly underestimate the number of people looking for work, the Trade Union Congress (TUC) revealed yesterday.

In particular, the number of women seeking work is “understated.”

Analysing the Office of National Statistics (ONS) Labour Force Survey, the TUC said that the ONS figures only include people who have very recently applied for a new job and are immediately available to start.

The effect is to cut hundreds of thousands of people who want to work out of the statistics.

“In the past three years, the headline unemployment figure fell by more than 800,000, from 2,633,000 to 1,827,000,” said the TUC.

“However, in the same three years, the number of economically inactive people who want work hardly moved, from 2,371,000 to 2,298,000.

“During the same period, the number of economically inactive women seeking work actually increased slightly, from 1,363,000 to 1,379,000.

“The unemployment figure for men is 990,000 and for women it is 815,000. However, there are 1,379,000 economically inactive women seeking work, compared to just 920,000 men.”

TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said: “Reducing the claimant count alone is not good enough if there are still over two million people who want a job but don’t have one.

“The government should be especially concerned about the lack of progress for women with caring responsibilities who want to work. There are nearly half a million more women looking for work than men and the gap is not closing.”