Britain's Office for National Statistics said 17,341 people declared bankruptcy in the three months through September — up from 15,842 in the same quarter of 2007. The number of bankruptcies was 12 percent higher than it was in the previous quarter.

British companies were hit even harder by the economic downturn, the statistics office said, with 26 percent more businesses — or 4,001 — going under in the third quarter of this year than did last year.

Britain's economy contracted 0.5 percent last quarter and the Bank of England expects the country will be in a technical recession — defined as two or more consecutive quarters of negative growth — by the beginning of next year.