The first clear signs that the credit crunch and stuttering economic growth have begun to hit jobs emerged on Wednesday with official figures showing the number of people claiming unemployment benefit had risen for the third month in a row.

The last time that this occurred was in 2006. According to the Office for National Statistics, the number of people claiming job seekers’ allowance rose last month by just more than 7,000 to 806,300. But the figure was still 82,300 lower than in April last year.