The number of workers on UK payrolls plunged more than 600,000 among March and May, official figures suggest.
In the meantime, the number of people claiming work-related benefits – which includes the jobless – was up 126% to 2.8 million.
The early gauges mirror the effect of around a month and a half of lockdown in which large parts of the UK were shut.
Be that as it may, financial specialists state the full impact on work won’t be felt until wage support schemes end in October.
“The stoppage in the economy is currently obviously hitting the work advertise, particularly as far as hours worked,” said Jonathan Athow, deputy national statistician for economic statistics at the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
“Early indicators for May show that the number of workers on payrolls were down more than 600,000 contrasted and March.”
Separate figures published by HMRC on Tuesday indicated that an aggregate of 9.1 million laborers has now been furloughed.
Overall, the UK unemployment rate held steady at 3.9% in the three months to April as massive wage support schemes brought in by the government prevented job losses.
Mirroring this, the ONS said the total number of the weekly hours worked in the period had dropped to 959.9 million – somewhere near a record 94.2 million, or 9%, on the previous year.
There was also a record fall in work opening among March and May to 476,000 – down 342,000 from the last quarter.
‘Weakened Dramatically’
The figures come after huge pieces of the economy were closed down to battle coronavirus.
However, Capital Economics economist Ruth Gregory warned bigger unemployment rises were on their way.
“It was copiously clear in each other pointer [other than the feature joblessness rate] that the work advertise has weakened dramatically,” she said.
“Despite the apparent stability of the actual unemployment rate, the labour market data were still pretty awful. And some of this will surely start to filter through into the actual unemployment figures as the government’s job furlough scheme is wound down from August.”
Tej Parikh, the chief economist at the Institute of Directors, concurred: “The leave conspire keeps on holding off the greater part of employment misfortunes, but unemployment is likely to surge in the months ahead.”
