Britain’s unemployment rate has fallen for the second month running, after a year in which young people suffered the brunt of job losses
- Latest: Vacancies up 16% in March, ONS say
- Jobless rate falls to 4.9% in December-February as labour market stabilises
- But company payrolls down by 56,000 in March
- Younger workers have suffered most job losses
ING Developed Markets Economist James Smith has dug into the ONS’s data, and found more signs that the labour market is turning a corner:
The UK jobs market has proved fairly resilient through the latest lockdowns.
The latest unemployment rate covering the three-month period to February dipped to 4.9% – and new weekly data suggests it has gone as low as 4.6% during that time. More timely payroll data dipped back slightly in March but also suggests that – outside of the hard-hit consumer services sector – other parts of the jobs market are beginning to turn a corner.
“The small rise in employment recorded in February during a period of national lockdown, is proof of the increased resilience of the UK economy to lockdowns.
The improved optimism that the worst of the pandemic may be over should be tempered by the fact that employers generally wait until the end of a lockdown period to reassess their business plans and we may still see a rise in redundancies later on if business activity doesn’t recover quickly to pre-pandemic levels.”
Our latest #NIESRwage Tracker suggests the #economy created more #jobs than it lost during the third national #lockdown
It also forecasts that average weekly earnings will grow at 5.2% in the second quarter of 2021
Read here our analysis in full https://t.co/lha6z1SSQ4
On the competition concerns over the Asda takeover, a spokesperson for the Issa brothers and TDR Capital says:
“We will be working constructively with the CMA over the course of the next 10 days in order to arrive at a satisfactory outcome for all parties within Phase 1.
This would provide welcome certainty for our colleagues, suppliers and customers, and allow us to move forward with our exciting plans for investment and growth at Asda.”