Britain's unemployment rate remained at 7.9 percent in the three months to August 2009, the highest level since November 1996, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said Wednesday.

It was unchanged from the level recorded for the three months to July but was up by 0.3 percentage points compared with the previous three months to May this year and it was 2.1 percentage points higher than the same period a year earlier.

The ONS said the number of unemployed people in Britain increased 88,000 in the three months to August and reached 2.47 million. That was 677,000 more than a year earlier.

The number of unemployed men rose by 76,000 in the three months to August to reach 1.53 million; while the number of unemployed women was 935,000 in the three months to August, up 12,000 from the three months to May.