The number of people claiming unemployment benefits in Banff and Buchan has increased by over 70% since last year.
Figures released this week reveal that the claimant count for the region has risen from 425 to 1,020 people in the space of 12 months.
MSPs in the area have blamed the downturn in the oil and gas industry for the increase, with unemployment up by 92% across as a whole.
Lewis Macdonald, Labour MSP for the north-east, said the figures are an “illustration of the human cost” of the oil and gas crisis.
He added: “What we are seeing is a result of thousands of people who were made redundant several months ago, now signing on for the first time as their redundancy money runs out.”
The MSP also voiced his opinion that many of the people who have suffered, amid the economic downturn, will not show up in official figures for several months.
Hundreds of people from Young’s Seafood Ltd’s Fraserburgh plant have been left without work in recent months after the seafood giant lost a lucrative salmon processing deal with a supermarket.
About 1,000 people were faced with the threat of redundancy when Sainsbury’s agreed a new processing contract with Norwegian firm Marine Harvest.
The Scottish Government later stepped in to ensure the factory would be kept open, reducing the number of cuts.
However, Banffshire and Buchan SNP MSP, Stewart Stevenson said: “The ongoing downturn in the oil and gas sector is continuing to hit the north-east hard, and has ripple effects for the wider local economy.
“Unemployment in Aberdeenshire is still well below the national average, at just over 1%, but recent redundancies mean that the jobs market has become a lot more competitive.”
The rise in unemployment figures for Buchan and Aberdeenshire bucks a national trend which has shown a decrease.
A jobs fair was held was held in Fraserburgh last month to highlight new career paths for those who have been affected by redundancy.