The industry employs 5.6m people across more than 500,000 different businesses.

The jobless rate has hit 22.8pc with 5.4m people out of work.

There were 29.11m people in employment aged 16 and over, down 63,000 on the quarter.

The city has about 1.1m people on public assistance.

By 1990, it had gone up to 22.2%, or 12.2m people, with huge rises in the mid-1980s.

In 1984 just over six per cent of all workers, or some 1.5m people, regarded their jobs as temporary.

A total of 6.57m people were claiming unemployment benefits during that period under all programs, down 431,397 from the prior week.

In comparison, there are 656.6m people living in rural areas.

More than 4.6m people have contracted out of the state scheme into personal pension plans since their introduction in 1986.

- Viewing figures show that 9.4m people watched last night's leaders' debate.