MINISTERS must take urgent action to tackle unemployment if Britain is to avoid a post-coronavirus financial disaster, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) urged today.

A sharp rise in unemployment is the “biggest danger” Britain’s economy faces, the TUC warned, as it called on the government to stop millions of job losses.

The trade union body said that high levels of unemployment at, or higher than, the rate seen in the Thatcher era would stretch government funds to an “unprecedented peacetime rise in borrowing,” at a predicted sum of £322 billion this year.