London, April 16 (Xinhua-RHC) -- Britain’s jobless rate is forecast to rise to 9.3 percent in the middle of next year, an independent forecasting group said on Monday.

A spring forecast report issued by the Ernst & Young Item Club expected the unemployment rate, currently at 8.4 percent, to approach 9.3 percent by the middle of next year, with the number of jobless people rising to almost 3 million before beginning to fall back.

In its report, the Item Club said that households remain under intense pressure in labor and commodity markets and private-sector recruitment is barely able to offset the redundancies in the sector.

At the same time, the Club forecast that Britain’s Consumer Price Index (CPI), a major gauge for inflation, will reach 2.8 percent this year and drop to 2.1 percent next year. The figures indicate a slowdown in Britain’s inflation.

The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONE) showed that Britain’s CPI fell to 3.4 percent in February from 3.6 percent in the previous month. This is the lowest annual inflation level Britain has seen since November 2010.

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