Unemployment rose to 2.47m in the second quarter of this year taking the jobless rate to 7.9%.
It is expected to rise to 3m by the end of next year.
The figures were contained in a report released today by the UK's Office of National Statistics.
The number of people claiming jobseeker's allowance in August increased by 24,400 to 1.61m.
Northern Ireland's unemployment rate is at 6.7% (53,000), which is slightly lower than the UK average.
This possibly reflects the higher level of public sector employment in Northern Ireland.
Nothern Ireland's Enterprise Minister Arlene Foster said the scale of the recession was unprecedented in the post-war era and its effect on Northern Ireland had been stark.
However, the biggest impact of the recession in the UK has been among the young, where almost a fifth of 16-to-24-year-olds are now out of work.
Opposition leader David Cameron said: 'It's extremely depressing that we are getting to a point of 2.5m people unemployed.
'What we need to do is make sure our welfare system is working in every way it can to help people get jobs, to help people get back into work, to give them the training that they need.'
