The unemployment figure remained relatively steady as workers instead became “economically inactive”The lockdown obliterated jobs at the fastest pace since the financial crisis a decade ago, according to official figures. Nearly a quarter of a million jobs — 220,000 — were lost between April and June, according to the Office for National Statistics. This was the sharpest deterioration since the May-July period in 2009, when 254,000 jobs were lost. An ONS analysis of tax data shows that the number of people on UK payrolls fell by almost three quarters of a million — 730,000 — between March and July. Although hundreds of thousands of people have lost their jobs since the lockdown was imposed, the unemployment rate remains at close to a record low of 3.9 per cent.

Source: The Times August 11, 2020 07:52 UTC