The number of people employed in the U.K. fell by 220,000 in the three months to June, the steepest quarterly decline since May to July 2009, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said Tuesday.
While the unemployment rate was unchanged at 3.9 percent, that figure reflected the fact that many people who were out of work had given up looking for jobs and therefore werent counted in the stats, the ONS said.
The ONS noted that a large number of people are estimated to be temporarily away from work as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, including furloughed workers — approximately 7.5 million in June 2020, with over 3 million of them not working for three months or more. The ONS said it estimated around 300,000 of the people who werent working because of the pandemic had received no pay in June.
Early indicators for July also paint a grim picture, suggesting the number of employees on payrolls in the U.K. fell 2.5 percent — around 730,000 — compared with March 2020, according to the stats office.
The number of hours worked also continued to fall, reaching record lows both on the year and on the quarter, the ONS said, with the number of people on zero-hours contracts increasing.
“New analysis shows that the youngest workers, oldest workers and those in manual oRead More – Source
