Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news
- Full story: UK unemployment rate drops again as firms hire more staff
- 7am: UK jobless rate drops to 4.7% in February-April
- Payrolled employees surged by 197,000 in May to 28.5m
- Vacancies up as firms look to hire
- Earnings rose 5.6% year-on-year – compositional and base effects cited
- Redundancies fall to pre-Covid levels.. Youth employment at critical moment
- Restaurants and pubs ‘face collapse’ during extended England lockdown
In other trade news…EU goods imports from the United Kingdom have fallen by over 27% in the first four months of 2021, compared to January-April 2020, according to the latest data from Eurostat.
That’s a much steeper fall than for other major trading partners, as the table below shows.
Euro area trade in goods surplus €10.9 bn in April, €13.0 bn surplus for EU https://t.co/286JaYtwvf pic.twitter.com/JIPIesMatJ
Green Party MP Caroline Lucas is also concerned about the environmental consequences, and the impact to farmers.
Sunday – PM signs G7 pledge for more climate action
Monday – PM agrees Australia trade deal with coal-loving leader with no plan for net zero
& sells out UK farmers in the process https://t.co/QYbZgxfeK0
