Labour’s shadow minister for women and equalities said in response to yesterday's labour market statistics:

"The figures show women being heavily hit by the Government's current economic policies with the number of women on unemployment benefit in the last year up by 18 per cent and the number of redundancies among women up 27 per cent.

"Women's unemployment is now at its highest for over two decades, as more and more women are being forced out of work and back into the home by a combination of cuts to jobs and childcare. The Government has got a blind spot on women and needs to urgently change track."