Graph of monthly changes in uk unemployment. New data for covid-19 time is an estimate from https://www.poundsterlinglive.com/economics/13056-uk-unemployment-rate-left-at-highest-since-june-2014-by-dwp-s-950k-new-claims All other data from https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peoplenotinwork/outofworkbenefits/datasets/claimantcountcla01 Made with R Package ggplot2 If you want the code I'll put it up on github This is not the total number that is at https://imgur.com/a/8g53xd2 and you can argue the rate of unemplyment/employment is a better metric. An explanation for the big spike is Date Number Jan 1947 433,100 Feb 1947 1,911,700 Mar 1947 805,800 there was a massive snow storm that mean there was not enough coal to run the factories so loads of people lost their jobs temporarily https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_of_1946%E2%80%9347_in_the_United