Pound lifted by signs of UK jobs recovery; US housing starts hit by surging lumber costs – as it happened

Graeme Wearden

from on 2021-05-18 18:11 (#5HYKV)

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news

7.02pm BST

Time to recap:

UK employers who were getting ready for the easing of lockdown started hiring again in March, driving down unemployment for a third consecutive month, according to official figures.

Headline indicators for the UK labour market for January to March 2021 show

employment was 75.2%
unemployment was 4.8%
economic inactivity was 21.0%

https://t.co/1v8pKpeyNP pic.twitter.com/I7ZQiVDlxv

Today's firm employment data supports the Bank of England's recent revision to its growth outlook.

A robust labor market further adds to the list of reasons to hold sterling in the current climate, further evidenced by GBPUSD creeping higher on the back of the data release. UK market attention will now turn to tomorrow's inflation release"

Builders are delaying starting new construction because of the marked increase in costs for lumber and other inputs.

These supply-chain constraints are holding back a housing market that should otherwise be picking up speed, given the strong demand for buying fueled by an improving job market and low mortgage rates."

Single-family starts dropped back in April and continue to underperform building permits. This adds to the evidence that high lumber and other material prices are constraining housing starts. https://t.co/gv3ZdDswvH pic.twitter.com/HT4lbgNNca

The lumber situation is hardly new news, but this detail from today's Home Depot earnings call sure puts it in sharp relief $HD pic.twitter.com/dS3jYnEgtC

6.51pm BST

The Golden Age of the City is ending, as firms adjust to life after Brexit.

Just as firms based in the UK no longer have unfettered access to the EU's markets, so most EU-located firms will need authorisation to conduct business with London-based clients. So perhaps 300-500, mainly smaller, European firms will need to set up in London. The net result will be an outflow of jobs from London, but not on anything like the scale widely expected in 2016.

That is because firms have found ways to work around the regulatory obstacles. They have also found that moving staff is costly and difficult. London retains many attractions: schools, cultural life, and many long-established expatriate social networks. It will take time for any putative rival in the EU to develop a plausible matching offer.

6.12pm BST

Anyone who owns a mobile phone in the UK will probably have received a text, or several, claiming they owe a small fee to Royal Mail or other courier firms for a parcel.

It's a scam, along with similar fake emails, and they've tricked many people (including scores of Guardian readers).

With lockdown, we have all become mail-order shoppers, meaning more chance of a spam text landing with someone who is expecting a parcel. Action Fraud, the UK's national reporting centre for these types of crimes, wasn't able to give figures across the delivery industry, but says that between June 2020 and January 2021 it received 2,867 crime reports mentioning DPD, and that victims reported losing 3.4m over the same period. In December, the equivalent of 533 fake DPD emails a day were sent on to the suspicious email reporting service, which was launched last year.

When the Guardian asked readers if they had fallen victim to the scam, it received more than 120 responses in five days. Some were from people who had been taken in by the text and the website, and put in their details before smelling a rat. Others had got as far as pressing enter before they realised something was amiss. Others had been caught out completely.

5.37pm BST

Back in the City, the FTSE 100 blue-chip index has closed just 1 point higher at 7034 points.

British Airways owner IAG was another one of the days big movers - up 3.6% as the reality of summer travel slowly sinks in.

Despite some reports of queues and warnings that holidaymakers should not head to countries on the amber list, images on social media of sun drenched, empty beaches will undoubtedly push some rain-weary consumers towards travel websites.

The higher capex guidance, as Vodafone invests in new tech and services like 5G, is why investors are taking some skin out of the game today.

5.01pm BST

On inflation, governor Andrew Bailey says there's no strong evidence' that the jump in raw materials and supplies are feeding through to UK consumers.

But, he tells the Lords, the BoE is watching closely:

We do hear those stories about input prices but we are not yet seeing strong evidence of passing-through into consumer prices.

But I can assure you that we will be watching this extremely carefully and we will take action when we think it's appropriate to do so, no question about that."

On inflation @bankofengland Governor Andrew Bailey, said: Our forecast at the moment is that we do expect inflation to pickup in the next month or so really. We do expect that to change..."

... there's quite a strong shift in energy prices relative to where we were a year ago, so that's base effects coming through. Those very low energy prices are going to drop out of the equation."

So the judgement of the Monetary Policy Committee has to make is do we think that those base effects left to their own devices will be temporary, will not persist, and inflation will come back down to some point."

5.00pm BST

Incidentally, there's a good explanation here of why QE isn't monetary financing (because the central bank isn't buying bonds directly from the government, and because it will eventually sell them back to the market...)

4.44pm BST

Andrew Bailey also denies that the Bank of England has been funding the government's spending, insisting that its emergency measures at the height of the crisis stabilised the markets:

When asked if the Bank has practised monetary financing during the pandemic, @bankofengland Governor Andrew Bailey, said: No, not at all. I reject this out of hand."

What we did in that week of March was designed to stabilise financing conditions across the whole economy and to stabilise financial markets across the whole economy."

Part of those financial markets is the Government Bond Market. It plays a much bigger role in just financing the Government..."

"...it is also an anchor in financial markets because it is the risk-free asset, so an awful lot of collateral and security in financial markets is Government Bonds."

A meltdown in that market, which is frankly what we had on or hands, would have had widespread impact."

It doesn't mean the Government was insolvent, but if we had allowed that to go on, and if we had allowed it to get worse companies would not have been able to finance themselves, people would not have been able to borrow in the mortgage market..."

... and the Government would have found it very difficult to conduct the auction of gilts. That is the reality of it."

That is not compromising the central bank's independence one bit. What it is doing, is doing what any central bank needs to do, which is carrying out its duty to stabilise the market. And that's what we did."

The UK has become the first country to embrace the monetary financing of government to fund the immediate cost of fighting coronavirus, with the Bank of England agreeing to a Treasury demand to directly finance the state's spending needs on a temporary basis.

The government's extraordinary borrowing was made possible by the Bank of England. Not only did it cut interest rates from 0.75 per cent to 0.1 per cent, but for every 1 raised by the government in the gilt market, the Bank bought 1 of gilts through quantitative easing.

In other words, every penny raised in the pandemic has ended up on the Bank's balance sheet. The state in effect magicked up money in one pocket and moved it to the other. By absorbing the entire pandemic gilt issuance, the Bank kept markets liquid and borrowing costs down.

4.23pm BST

Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey has been defending the central bank's asset-purchase programme (quantitative easing, or QE) against the charge that it boosted inequality.

He's testifying to the House of Lords economic affairs committee. The argument is that, although QE drives up asset prices (owned by the better off), the stimulus package helped the rest of the population too, by lifting employment and earnings.

When asked if QE has caused more inequality, @bankofengland Governor Andrew Bailey, said: I wouldn't agree with that. Aggregate measures of inequality in this country haven't moved a lot in recent times. They moved a lot in the 1980s, but has moved relatively little since then." pic.twitter.com/nhxkw42ma9

There is no question that QE operates through asset values. Of course, asset ownership is not evenly distributed."

However, there is a second-round effect which is to look at the effects of QE in terms of the outcomes and say in the counterfactual without QE where would incomes and unemployment be? In our view they would be worse, so it does feed through to those who don't own assets."

4.22pm BST

Our economics editor Larry Elliott has analysed today's UK labour market report, and writes:

The chances of finding work have now started to improve as a result of gradual easing of restrictions. More timely indicators of the jobs market - the HMRC figures for the people on payrolls - showed hiring was up strongly in April and concentrated in those sectors that have taken the biggest hit since the UK first started to feel the effects of Covid-19 in February 2020. Payrolls expanded by 97,000 in April, although they remain three-quarters of a million lower than their pre-pandemic peak.

Assuming the government can stick to its plan of removing all restrictions by June, the improvement in the labour market looks likely to continue, with the under-25s - the age group most badly affected by lockdowns - the main beneficiaries.

The strength of earnings growth is something of a mirage, however, because the makeup of the labour market has changed over the past year, with people in higher-paid jobs continuing to work as normal but those in lower-paid jobs being furloughed or made redundant.

The ONS estimates these compositional changes boosted growth by almost three percentage points in March. Private pay settlements are running at about 1% - a much better guide to what is actually going on.

3.31pm BST

Back in the currency markets, the pound is still trading around its highest levels since late February.

Sterling is up over half a cent at $1.4195 (having reached $1.422 this morning), with the drop in unemployment and rise in company payrolls providing support.

As for FX market today, risk sentiment is positive, commodity prices and equities are stronger and the dollar's weaker.

UK employment suggest that the labour market is now on an improving trend and vaccination rates suggest the Eurozone is going to a growth acceleration too.

3.13pm BST

The New York stock market has opened cautiously

The Dow Jones industrial average is down 80 points, or 0.25%, at 34,246 while the broader S&P 500 dipped by 0.15%.

Our optimism is higher than it was at the beginning of the year. In the U.S., customers clearly want to get out and shop. We have a strong position as our store environment improves and eCommerce continues to grow.

Stimulus in the U.S. had an impact, and the second half has more uncertainty than a typical year. We anticipate continued pent-up demand throughout 2021.

U.S. stock benchmarks traded flat to lower Tuesday morning, even amid better-than-expected quarterly results from retailers, with declines in communication services and energy offsetting gains in technology shares. https://t.co/nVNcHPVEfb pic.twitter.com/Cb1NNFioZ6

2.40pm BST

Train operator Eurostar finally secured a 250m ($355 million) refinancing deal from its shareholders and banks today, to help it ride out the pandemic.

Some good news: Eurostar today announces that it has reached a refinancing agreement with its shareholders and banks. The refinancing package of 250m mainly consists of additional equity & loans from a syndicate of banks guaranteed by the shareholders/SNCF. pic.twitter.com/PisUNKgnuU

The package is led by France's state-owned railway group and 55 per cent shareholder, SNCF, along with Canadian institutional fund manager Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec, Hermes Infrastructure and the Belgian state rail operator.

The UK, which sold its 40% stake in Eurostar in 2015, did not take part. Grant Shapps, transport secretary, said in February that Eurostar was not our company to rescue" given it was majority owned by the French state.

Eurostar has landed a 250m bailout from shareholders including the French government, securing the future of the struggling Channel Tunnel train operator, despite the UK's refusal to join the rescue. https://t.co/XycQGeBCXc

2.16pm BST

A shortages of builders is also hitting house construction in the US, reckons Chad Moutray of the National Association of Manufacturers.

New residential construction activity pulled back from the fastest pace since July 2006, falling 9.5% from an annualized 1,733,000 units in March to 1,569,000 units in April. Housing starts were higher in the Northeast and West but weaker in the Midwest and South. pic.twitter.com/BGkCCT4T27

Overall, housing starts were disappointing in April, with rising construction costs and difficulties in finding talent likely taking a toll on residential construction for the month, particularly in the single-family market.

Since Feb. 2020, housing starts have fallen 1.2%, with single-family construction off 3.3% from pre-pandemic levels. Yet, it is also important to note that residential activity continues to be a strength in the economy overall, and builders remain optimistic in their outlook. pic.twitter.com/n2UfWSg9BD

2.11pm BST

Diane Swonk, chief economist at Grant Thornton, also blames the stratospheric' lumber prices for the drop in US housing starts (although, she points out, lumber has dipped back recently)

Housing starts disappoint in April - supply shortages persist. Biggest disappoint in single family. Losses broad based. Permits stronger but gains in multi instead of single family. Supply remains extremely constrained. Lumber prices from highs - still in stratosphere

2.00pm BST

The number of new house-building projects in the US fell sharply last month, following a surge in prices of raw materials such as lumber.

Housing starts dropped by 9.5% in April, to an annual rate of 1.569m (from 1.733m in March). This was driven by single family homes, where starts slumped 13%.

April Housing starts at 1.569 million on an average annualized pace. Forward looking permits at 1.76 using that same metrics. Have to think that input costs here are an impediment to construction of SFR's. Big drop in SFR from 1.255 million to 1.087. pic.twitter.com/ayjo6rWqzz

Housing starts fall 9.5% MoM, driven by SF starts. Prior to the pandemic builders were faced with a lack of construction workers, lack of buildable lots & restrictive regulatory requirements. Those headwinds remain but now builders must also grapple with surging lumber prices. pic.twitter.com/QC6Y3cA4bu

Housing starts fell -9.5% in Apr to 1.57 mil, up 67.3% YoY (base effect). Single-family starts fell 13.4% while multi-family homes grew 4.0%. Building permits issued were mostly flat at 0.3% to 1.76 mil. https://t.co/F6A30zRzVp pic.twitter.com/FzW4yIlsWd

April housing starts much weaker than expected at -9.5% vs. -2% est. & +19.8% in prior month; building permits also weaker than expected at +0.3% vs. +0.6% est. & +1.7% in prior month pic.twitter.com/JPMVE7YlPO

1.43pm BST

It's all action in the TV and film world this week.

MGM, which put itself up for sale in December, is one of the few Hollywood studios with crown jewel" franchises not to have been snapped up in the wave of mega mergers and acquisitions in the media industry in recent years.

The studio has explored selling several times over the last few years. In January last year it held preliminary talks with Netflix and Apple among others, but price proved to be a stumbling block.

1.31pm BST

The UK has been hit by an unexpected shortage as the lockdown eases. Mini Flakes to pop into a cone of soft icecream are running low, after a surge of demand.

Britons can now enjoy a pint in a pub or a restaurant meal but it turns out that, after months of hardship, the taste of freedom is a 99 ice-cream.

The heavy rain that has accompanied the lifting of lockdown restrictions has not put off Mr Whippy fans with unexpectedly high sales threatening to exhaust supplies of the mini Flakes that form an essential part of the 99 experience.

1.22pm BST

Landsec, one of Britain's biggest property companies, has warned of a slow recovery in visitors to central London and a sharp increase in retailer insolvencies at its shopping centres once government support ends, as its full-year loss widened to 1.4bn.

I was encouraged to see the relish with which people returned to experience in-person shopping as the easing of lockdown measures began in April."

1.04pm BST

In the car world, Italian supercar maker Lamborghini has announced plans for a fully-electric car...by the end of the decade.

The brand's three existing models will be electrified in 2023 and 2024, with the arrival of the facelifted Urus SUV and what are expected to be the successors to the V10 Huracan and V12 Aventador supercars.

While the Urus will offer various powertrains where regulations allow, the Huracan and Aventador successors are likely to be sold exclusively as plug-in hybrids.

Acceleration in the second part of the decade will be dedicated to full-electric vehicles.....

Technological innovation in this phase will be oriented towards ensuring remarkable performance, and positioning the new product at the top of its segment.

Italian sports car maker Lamborghini on Tuesday unveiled Tuesday a 1.5-billion-euro ($1.8 billion) electrification plan for its luxury vehicles, joining a global push away from fossil fuels at the risk of upsetting fanshttps://t.co/T1cQxtM42s

Lamborghini's electrification plan is a newly-plotted course, necessary in the context of a radically-changing world, where we want to make our contribution by continuing to reduce environmental impact through concrete projects.

Our response is a plan with a 360 degree approach, encompassing our products and our Sant'Agata Bolognese location, taking us towards a more sustainable future while always remaining faithful to our DNA.

Lamborghini will go electric - eventually https://t.co/nYKTqbzFsp pic.twitter.com/oArfDEgxwm

12.33pm BST

Despite the drag from Vodafone (-6%), the UK FTSE 100 has risen by around 27 points or 0.4% so far today, to 7060 points.

Optimism about the UK recovery from the pandemic seems to be lifting stocks. Bank NatWest (+2.5) are the top riser, with retail group JD Sports (+2.4%) and airline group IAG (+2.4%) among the risers.

Imperial are generating plenty of smoke, but still without any real fire. The numbers were solid enough, but despite the reported growth, the underlying performance of the tobacco business was actually a small decline in profitability.

What went well was pricing; Imperial saw price growth of 5.3%, and with premium cigars performing well, there was a product mix benefit of another 1.2% on top. Imperial succeeded in steadying its market share in its five priority markets of the US, UK, Germany, Spain and Australia. Losses in the Next Generation Products arm fell, as Imperial took action to steady that ship.

#ImperialBrands trades 2%

The tobacco giant posted strong H1 results & said that it was on track to meet full year targets

Revenue 3.5% driven by a 3.2% in tobacco revenue & 16% #newgeneration products#MarketUpdate

RW:82.66% of retail clients lose money.

11.58am BST

We've also had confirmation that the eurozone fell back into recession earlier this year, with GDP dropping by 0.6% in Q1 (in line with the initial estimate at the end of April).

Euro area #GDP -0.6% in Q1 2021, -1.8% compared with Q1 2020: flash estimate from #Eurostat https://t.co/kXT4z2D7qF pic.twitter.com/YDIQyDJBiF

Euro area #employment -0.3% in Q1 2021, -2.1% compared with Q1 2020: flash estimate from #Eurostat https://t.co/kXT4z2D7qF pic.twitter.com/lBZCQcyl22

The risk-on market mood is keeping the euro elevated above 1.22, a three-month high. Several European countries are starting to ease pandemic restrictions as Covid numbers decline.

After a slow start, the vaccine programme is also ramping up on the old continent, setting the scene for a strong re-open and a pick up in tourism over the critical summer months in countries such as Italy and Spain.

11.46am BST

The pound has risen to its highest level against the US dollar in almost three months

With the dollar weakening generally, sterling rose 0.5% to $1.422 this morning, its highest since 24th February (which was the strongest since April 2018).

A stronger than expected jobs report and a weaker dollar are helping propel GBPUSD close to the highest levels of the year.

Jobs data from the UK showed the first gain in employment since the pandemic began with 84,000 gaining jobs in April as the economy emerged from the latest series of lockdowns. The labour market is very much a two-tier story at the moment; jobs either being snapped up by high-skilled workers furloughed or made redundant through the pandemic or low-skilled workers remaining unable to gain new employment.

A pick-up in Europe's vaccination pace along with the gradual easing of virus restrictions in several Eurozone countries have revived the euro's fortunes, rallying more than 4% since the beginning of April.

However, rising Eurozone government bond yields on the back of speculation that the European Central Bank might start planning its exit strategy from the emergency stimulus as early as June are also fuelling the single currency's rebound. Unlike the Fed, the ECB has not put up a united front when it comes to policymakers' views on how soon bond purchases should be dialled back and this is exacerbating the dollar's weakness against the euro.

11.20am BST

In the City, shares in Vodafone have slumped by over 6% this morning, making the mobile company the biggest faller on the FTSE 100, as investors reacted to a hit on revenues due to the impact of pandemic travel bans, a drop in smartphone sales and lower than expected profits.

Vodafone saw its revenue and earnings hit by lower roaming charges as individuals were unable to travel thanks to the pandemic. Handset sales have also slumped, suggesting we're not so bothered about having the latest, fancy new phone when we're stuck at home."

The pandemic has shown how critical connectivity and digital services are to society. Vodafone is strongly positioned and through increased investment, we are taking action now to ensure we play a leadership role and capture the opportunities that these changes create."

11.05am BST

Josie Dent, managing economist at economic consultancy CEBR, points out the increase in UK payrolls last month was driven by finance & insurance' and administrative & support services' firms.

She adds:

The labour market recovery continued into April, with a further 97,000 people in payrolled employment compared to March.

The hospitality industry in particular will have benefitted from a resurgence in demand as outdoor venues were permitted to open on 12th April.

10.37am BST

UK employers preparing for the easing of lockdown started hiring again in March, driving down unemployment for a third consecutive month, according to official figures, my colleague Richard Partington reports.

The number of adults seeking work fell to 1.6 million in the three months to March, compared with 1.7 million in the three months to February, the Office for National Statistics said.

UK unemployment drops as businesses hire amid Covid easing https://t.co/WwY7doSjoy

10.25am BST

ING developed markets economist James Smith says today's data provides further signs that the jobs market is starting to turn the corner.

Despite the recent lockdown, the unemployment rate slipped to 4.8% in the three months to March. And actually if we look at more timely weekly data, the rate averaged 4.6% in the last six weeks of the first quarter - going briefly as low as 3.9% (though this data is pretty noisy).

We can already see signs of a rapid turnaround in the hospitality sector over recent weeks, where online job adverts have returned quickly to pre-virus levels since the reopening road-map was announced.

While this is a flow' measure and clearly isn't the same as saying employment has returned to where it was before the pandemic, it does suggest some of the past employment losses we've seen over recent months could be quickly reversed over coming months.

9.52am BST

The UK labour market is now on the front foot, with most of the falls in employment probably behind us, says Thomas Pugh of Capital Economics.

He explains:

The 84,000 rise in LFS employment in the three months to March (consensus forecast +50,000) was the first increase since March 2020. And vacancies rose by another 36,000 taking them to 15% below their pre-crisis level.

Online job vacancies are already back to their pre-crisis level and point to employment remaining strong.

The unemployment rate may still rise over the rest of this year. But this will probably be due to people re-joining the labour market rather than more people losing their jobs.

9.35am BST

UK firms are on a hiring spree", says Resolution Foundation, with payrolls swelling by 97,000 last month, and vacancies near to pre-crisis levels.

But Resolution also warn that there's an employment gap of over 4 million jobs to fill.

The labour market has entered a new phase, starting to recover in April as the economy reopens, with the number of payrolled employees increasing by almost 100,000.

But the UK's 4.2 million Covid employment gap' shows we still have a long way to go to return to pre-pandemic employment levels.

Strong jobs data. We're entering a new phase:
- employment recovering (payrolls up 97k in April)
- still a mountain to climb (4.2m fewer people working than pre-crisis)
- signs of which structural changes will last (hospitality vacancies recovered but retail ones still 30% down)

9.27am BST

Economic inactivity among for young people has hit a record high, with fewer 16-24 year-olds in work or looking for a job.

It highlights how younger people have been particularly affected by the pandemic, with fewer opportunities for work during the lockdown (with bars and restaurants shuttered until last month, and only serving inside since yesterday).

This suggests that more young people are staying in education and not looking for work, which is supported by the record economic inactivity rate of young people in full-time education.

Young people make up nearly two-thirds of job losses since the start of the pandemic. As many clamber to spend savings and disposable income at newly reopened pubs and restaurants, this will be the first income for many young people since the beginning of the pandemic as they return to work in the hospitality sector, one of the largest employers of under-25s.

A coordinated long-term plan is needed to support the thousands of young people still looking for a way back into meaningful work, starting with the extension of the government's flagship youth employment scheme; Kickstart is not a nice to have - it's a must ."

9.06am BST

Today's jobs report also shows a worrying increase in longer-term unemployment since the pandemic began.

The number of people out of work for at least a year rose to 381,236 in January-March, up from 299,109 a year ago.

Today's figures confirm that the labour market is turning the corner - with a sharp rise in employee jobs in April as the economy reopened, vacancies rising and unemployment now clearly trending down. However you don't have to look too far to see the lasting damage caused by a year of lockdowns and disruption. Long-term unemployment rose by more than a quarter in the last year, its fastest rate of growth since the 2010 crisis.

Older people in particular are now starting to see sharp rises, with long-term unemployment reaching its highest in five years. With many firms reporting difficulties in filling jobs as the economy reopens, government and employers will need to do more to bring the long-term unemployed back into work and help avoid this crisis leading to lasting scars."

8.37am BST

Redundancies also fell in January-March, but remain higher than before the pandemic.

There were around 153,000 redundancies in the first quarter of 2021, down sharply on the 343,000 recorded in October-December. That pulls the redundancy rate down to its lowest in eight months:

8.18am BST

Today's UK labour market report also shows that regular pay packets grew by 4.6% per year in January-March (or 3.6% after inflation)...

..however, that's partly because the pandemic hit lower-paid workers harder. As more lost their jobs, or were furloughed, a compositional effect' pushed up average pay levels.

After allowing for inflation, average regular pay (excluding bonuses) in January to March 2021 was up 3.6% on the year. Average total pay (including bonuses) was up 3.1%.

These figures were affected by changes in the make-up of the workforce https://t.co/ulSOyWaWUb pic.twitter.com/p8U7p335iP

8.12am BST

ONS Director of Economic Statistics Darren Morgan points out that the drop in unemployment in January-March was partly due to some unemployed people no longer looking for work, as the UK went into lockdown again:

Commenting on today's labour market data, ONS Director of Economic Statistics Darren Morgan said (1/3) pic.twitter.com/LjVoBQv82o

Continuing, Darren Morgan said: (2/3) pic.twitter.com/UIYRrnvEjN

Darren Morgan added:
(3/3) pic.twitter.com/GMdig4I4A3

8.04am BST

Minister for Employment Mims Davies MP says today's employment report shows the resilience" of the UK jobs market:

A continued fall in unemployment, a further rise in vacancies, and growth in the employment rate is welcome news as we continue on our roadmap to recovery.

While there is more to do to make sure we support jobseekers over the coming months, these figures highlight the resilience of our jobs market and ability for employers to adapt - and through our Plan for Jobs we're continuing to create new opportunities for people right across the country.

More to do to make sure we support jobseekers impacted by #Covid19 in coming months,but these figures highlight the resilience of our jobs market & ability for employers to adapt- through our #PlanForJobs we're continuing to create new opportunities for people across the country pic.twitter.com/jmOEeHUZ7k

7.59am BST

Vacancies at UK firms also rose over the last three months, to the highest level since the pandemic began.

The ONS reports that most industries advertised more jobs, with accommodation and food service activities more active (in preparation for the relaxing of restrictions in April, and again yesterday).

7.50am BST

The number of people on company payrolls rose in April, as some firms reopened as lockdown restrictions were eased.

The ONS estimates that 97,000 more people were in payrolled employment last month, compared with March.

Since February 2020, the largest falls in payrolled employment have been in the hospitality sector, among those aged under 25 years, and those living in London.

7.31am BST

Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of the world economy, the financial markets, the eurozone and business.

Britain's unemployment rate has fallen, in a sign that the labour market may be recovering as the economy emerges from the Covid-19 lockdown.

Following a period of employment growth and low unemployment, since the start of the pandemic employment has generally been decreasing and unemployment increasing.

However, the latest (January to March 2021) estimates show signs of recovery, with a quarterly increase in the employment rate. Meanwhile, there was a quarterly decrease in the unemployment rate and the economic inactivity rate increased on the quarter.

956.2 million hours were worked each week in January to March 2021.

This is well below pre-pandemic levels and down 22.6 million hours on the previous three months, reflecting the increased #Coronavirus restrictions https://t.co/OdFNO8LToT pic.twitter.com/i8uOgJbHYT

A joint project by the Resolution Foundation thinktank and the London School of Economics said the UK was neither used to nor prepared for the challenges posed by the aftermath of Covid-19, Brexit, the net zero transition, automation and a changing population.

Announcing the launch of their Economy 2030 Inquiry, the two organisations said muddling through without a proper plan would be disastrous for the living standards of individuals and the economy as a whole.

European Opening Calls:#FTSE 7088 +0.79%#DAX 15501 +0.67%#CAC 6411 +0.68%#AEX 709 +0.78%#MIB 25099 +0.95%#IBEX 9212 +0.61%#OMX 2245 +0.67%#STOXX 4036 +0.74%#IGOpeningCall

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