The total number of people out of work in Scotland now stands at 202,000.

Last month, it was announced that unemployment figures for Scotland had fallen for the first time since the summer of 2008, but the story was not the same for Tayside and Fife, which both saw considerable rises compared to November 2009.

Figures published by the Office for National Statistics show that in Dundee 4816 people were out of work in December, 5.4% of the population and a rise of 51 compared with November.

The statistics come as plans were announced for a £24 million Asda store on the site of the former NCR factory at Wester Gourdie. The project should create 500 jobs.

Elsewhere in Tayside, there were 2169 people unemployed in Angus, a rise of 94 in a month and there were 2050 people looking for work in Perth and Kinross — an increase of more than 500 on the previous year.

It was a similar picture in Fife, where 9960 people were unemployed — around 4.5% of the population. This is a rise of almost 2000 compared with December 2008 and a difference of 125 since last month.

The number of people in Scotland claiming Jobseekers’ Allowance rose to 136,200 over the last month, 36,700 more than the previous year.

Despite the rises, the Scottish labour market is continuing to outperform the rest of the UK with the country’s unemployment rate standing at 7.4%, slightly below the UK rate of 7.8%.

SNP treasury spokesman, Stewart Hosie MP, today warned that recovery from recession was still fragile and condemned the UK Government’s decision to slash Scotland’s budget by £814 million.

Nationally, unemployment has fallen for the first time in almost two years with fewer people claiming jobseeker’s allowance.

The number of people out of work in the three months to November was cut by 7000 to 2.46 million, although the rate remained unchanged at 7.8%.

The claimant count fell for the second month in a row in December, down by 15,200 to 1.61 million, the biggest monthly fall since April 2007.

The number of unemployed people is more than half a million higher than a year ago, today’s data from the Office for National Statistics showed.