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LONDON, July 16 (Reuters) - The pace of decline in Britain's
labour market slowed in June, official data showed on Thursday
although the figures did not include a recent slew of job losses
caused by the coronavirus's hit to the economy.
Early indicators suggested that the number of employees on
companies' payrolls was down by 649,000 between March and June,
with the largest falls at the start of the pandemic, the Office
for National Statistics said.
Britain's unemployment rate unexpectedly held at 3.9% in the
three months to May.
A Reuters poll of economists pointed to a rise in the
unemployment rate to 4.2%.
An ONS official said the unemployment rate had been held
down by around half a million people who were away from work
because of the pandemic and receiving no pay, but who said they
believed they still had a job.
Even so, the number of people in employment in the three
months to May fell by the most since 2011, down 126,000, driven
mostly by self-employed people, the ONS said.
There was another sign of the weakness in the labour market
in the number of vacancies which fell in the three months to
June to the lowest level since the data series began in 2001 at
333,000, 23% lower than the previous record low in 2009.
Finance minister Rishi Sunak last week announced a latest 30
billion-pound round of measures to stem an expected surge in
unemployment, including the payment of bonuses to companies
which take back furloughed workers.
But since then a string of companies have announced layoff
plans ranging from private security company G4S to
retailers Boots and John Lewis.
(Reporting by William Schomberg, editing by David Milliken)
