Unemployment posts a rise
Regular statistics were once again playing second fiddle to the economic reality last month.
For January-March they showed a rise to 1.35 million people unemployed, taking the unemployment rate to 3.9% (0.1 percentage points higher than the previous quarter), while employment rose.
But experimental figures from the Office for National Statistics/HMRC suggest a big fall in paid employees to 28.6 million in April, down from 29.0 million in the previous month (a drop of 1.6%). The figures cover people paid through the PAYE system and should include those on the CJRS furlough scheme, of which there are over 7.5 million.
There doesn’t yet seem to be as clear a picture on self-employed workers.
The Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS), which opened last month, pays a single instalment worth 80% of average monthly trading profits over three months, capped at £7,500. But the longer-term future of both schemes remains uncertain.
February-April 2020 saw a huge fall in total job vacancies (down from 749,000 to 637,000) while there were 1.5 million claims for Universal Credit (13 March 2020-9 April 2020), over six times more than in the same period last year.
Hours worked also fell sharply, especially in hospitality and construction.