British employers added a record 184,000 staff to their payrolls in December, shrugging off the Omicron variant of Covid-19 and taking total staff numbers to 1.4 per cent above their pre-pandemic level in February 2020.
The broader unemployment rate for the three months to the end of November fell to 4.1 per cent, the Office for National Statistics said on Tuesday, below economists’ forecasts in a Reuters poll for it to hold at 4.2 per cent.
Online retail platform THG reported a 29.7 per cent rise in fourth-quarter revenue, putting it on track for the year, but it cautioned that adjusted core earnings margin would fall short of market expectations due to adverse currency movements.
The company, which has beauty and nutrition businesses as well as e-commerce services, said the early part of 2022 was expected to be a more challenging comparable period due to global lockdowns a year ago and record commodity prices within its nutrition division.
888 Holdings posted a 14 per cent rise in annual revenue despite a slowdown in the fourth quarter, as the online gambling firm benefitted from sustained growth in casino gaming during the pandemic and expansion into regulated markets.
The London-listed company said the revenue for the year ended 31 December rose to $972million (£712.7million), while fourth quarter revenue fell 16 per cent compared with a strong 2020 when lockdowns drove online gaming.
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You’re hired: In December 2021 there were 29.5 million employees in the UK, up 184,000 on November levels and up 409,000 on pre-Covid levels
