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revealed that youth unemployment had soared even higher, with 43% of the under 25s who are not studying now unable to find work.

The first quarter

"It is a dramatic and brutal increase," said Helena Pinto,

a leap in emigration by people desperate to find work.

Portugal's economy is expected to shed yet more jobs and shrink by a further 2.3% this year,

bidding of the troika of lenders who keep it afloat - the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Commission.

government forces ever-deeper austerity

Portugal has now been in recession for almost three years

Passos Coelho's announcement

he would cut another €4.8bn spending over the next three years is expected to harm short-term growth further.

sack one in twenty public employees,

increase civil service working week from 35 to 40 hours

raise the retirement age by a year to 66

austerity has so far failed

taming the country's budget deficit

5.7% interest

country's constitutional court threw out €5.8bn in cuts to

civil service pay and sickness benefits.

the government selling ten year bonds

raising €3bn

could have sold three times as much debt this week

potential recovery in a country which needed €78bn of bailout money to escape bankruptcy

fail to spark growth

raising hopes that Portugal could wean itself off aid next year.

The government forecasts a third straight year of recession

unemployment rising to 18.5%

austerity

other southern European countries

increased last year from 4.4% of GDP to 6.4%.

signs of softening

the troika

extended the repayment period for Portugal's bailout loans

seven years

the growing economy is helping record numbers of people to find a job

The rise in employment is being fuelled by businesses and entrepreneurs across the country who are feeling increasingly confident with the improving economy

long-term economic plan is working

pensions secretary Rachel Reeves disagreed, saying "long-term youth unemployment has doubled

rise in employment was down to the increase in the number of self-employed

while youth unemployment had gone down, the rate was "still nearly three times the rate of unemployment as a whole

Earnings "remain below inflation"

North East of England has the highest unemployment rate in the UK, at 9.5%

South East, where the rate is lowest, only 5.2%

MPC members voted earlier this month to keep interest rates at 0.5%

But 1.4 million people are in part-time jobs because they cannot find full-time work, a fall of 29,000 over the latest quarter but 46,000 higher than a year ago.

Employment now stands at more than 30 million, a rate of 72.1%, which is 0.6% higher than a year ago.

"Under-employment is now a bitter reality for millions of struggling families across the UK."

More than 900,000 young people are still unemployed and over 250,000 young people have been unemployed for over a year.

"Today's figures also show working people facing a cost-of-living crisis are over £1,600 a year worse off since David Cameron became Prime Minister.

the latest unemployment figures showed that the UK had a strong and flexible labour market, adding: " However, there are signs that the pace of improvement in the jobs market is slowing down. Although youth unemployment has fallen, the jobless level among 16 to 24-years-olds still stands at 917,000, which is far too high.

"Many people are also still working part-time, as they are unable to gain full-time employment."

At the other end of the scale, of the regions with jobless rates of 5.4%

Latest estimates show that 193,000 more people were in work between October and December, compared to the previous three months.

government is trying to encourage young people to take such positions to address long-term unemployment.

The official unemployment rate for Saudis is around 12 per cent. However, economists estimate that only 30-40 percent of working age Saudis participate in the workforce, either by holding jobs or seeking employment.

years of successive fiscal surpluses and foreign currency reserves

economists often warn that high government spending, particularly on salaries, is unsustainable.

As the economy strengthens, the debate is focused on whether to double the tax in two stages or increase it more gradually, rather than whether or not to increase the tax.

Wage-earners' incomes also rose an annual 1.3 percent in July, increasing for the fifth straight month.

And the jobless rate improved for the second straight month to hit 3.8 percent in July, the lowest since October 2008.

e Bank of Japan have gambled on massive fiscal and monetary stimulus to spark life into the economy,

strengthening the case for a planned sales tax increase.

Pessimists have argued that the benefits of "Abenomics," a three-pillar strategy of fiscal and monetary stimulus combined with a long-term growth strategy, may be short-lived and won't prompt companies to spend more on investment and wages.

The Bank of Japan has a target of lifting inflation to 2 percent in about two years, a goal many analysts see as optimistic given the deflation that has dogged the economy.

“It’s higher-income people and it is mainly from the stock market; it’s not mainly wages,” said Alice M. Rivlin, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and director of the Office of Management and Budget in the Clinton administration.

Military spending in particular has dropped sharply, especially as operations in Afghanistan gradually wind down. In the first half of the 2014 fiscal year, which began last October, the Defense Department’s military spending fell by $20 billion.

In addition to the boom in tax revenue, the federal government’s books are being helped by lower military spending, a drop in outlays for benefits like unemployment insurance, and payments to the Treasury from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage giants that were taken over by Washington in 2008.

Corporate tax collections jumped by $17 billion in the first half of the fiscal year, to $117.5 billion, and Social Security receipts also surged.

Over all, the deficit is expected to equal 4.1 percent of gross domestic product in 2014, down from nearly 10 percent in 2009, during the depths of the recession.

The thinktank expects the unemployment rate to have dropped to 7% in the three months to February

"That said, falling real incomes didn't get in the way of robust consumer spending growth over the last year. Household spending growth outpaced income growth as consumers saved less (or borrowed more)

This week's official data may show that the squeeze on real pay is now over.

"Earnings growth moving above consumer price inflation would also be a very welcome development for the government given Labour's focus on the cost of living.

Philip Shaw, economist at Investec, expects CPI to come in at 1.5%, which would be the lowest rate since October 2009, and he forecasts it will stay relatively low.

However we are keeping an eye on wholesale food prices – note that wheat prices (in sterling terms) are up 9.5% so far this year, while corn is 17% higher," he said.