UK unemployment rose by 131,000 to 1.92 million between September and November,
the highest total since September 1997.
That does not include the tens of thousands of jobs cut since November.
The number of people claiming jobseeker's allowance increased by 77,900 to 1.16
million, according to the Office for National Statistics.
Employment minister Tony McNulty said the figures were "very disappointing" and
predicted things would "get worse before they get better".
The unemployment rate was 6.1% for the three months to the end of November,
compared with 5.2% in the same period of 2007.
It is the highest jobless rate since the three months to the end of April 1999.
December is the eleventh consecutive month that the claimant count has risen.
'Plenty of bad news'
There were 225,000 redundancies in the three month period, which is the highest
level since the figure began being compiled in 1995.
"This is a very rapid pace of job shedding," said Alan Clarke at BNP Paribas.
"It is still very early days in this recession and there is plenty of bad news
in the pipeline."
There were 530,000 job vacancies in the last three months of 2008, down 69,000
from the previous quarter and the lowest figure since records began in 2001.
The total number of people unemployed is widely expected to have passed two
million in the last three months of 2008 - those figures will be released in
February.
More losses
It has been a tough seven weeks for jobs since the end of November, with the
low points including more than 27,000 jobs lost when Woolworths finally closed
its doors.
On Wednesday, Weybridge-based TT Electronics said that it would be cutting a
further 100 jobs in the UK on top of the 400 already announced.
The Prince's Trust has warned that a disproportionate number of jobs have been
lost by young people.
It said that 45% of the people who have become unemployed in the last three
months were under the age of 25.