Boris Johnson warns of ‘bumpy’ months ahead after decade-high job losses
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said there will be bumpy months ahead, after cuts to jobs in the UK rose to a decade-high today.
“We always knew that this was going to be a very tough time for people losing their jobs,” Johnson told reporters when asked about the data.
“Clearly there are going to be bumpy months ahead and a long long way to go.”
Official UK data showed the number of people with jobs suffered the biggest drop since 2009 in the three months to the end of June, led by a record fall in the self-employed.
More job losses are expected as the government brings its job retention scheme to a close at the end of October, which has covered around one in three private sector jobs in the UK.
“A real concern is that this is just the first wave of bad news for the jobs market,” said Gerwyn Davies, senior labour market adviser at the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development.
“The fact that reduced hiring rather than increased firing of permanent staff is the main cause of the jobs slowdown to date bodes ill for the coming months if more employers turn to redundancies as a last resort.”
The unemployment rate unexpectedly held steady at 3.9 per cent, but the number of people on company payrolls in July fell by 730,000.
The Office for National Statistics said the stable rate reflected the rise in people who had given up looking for work, and therefore were not considered unemployed. It was also affected by 300,000 people who said they were working but getting no pay.
Economists polled by Reuters had expected the UK unemployment rate to rise to 4.2 per cent in July. Last week, the Bank of England said the jobless rate would hit 7.5 per cent at the end of this year.