The Office for National Statistics has today painted a bleak picture of ‘weakening employment, rising inactivity, large falls in hours worked, shrinking pay and collapsing job vacancies.’
According to reports in The Times, ‘roughly a third of the UK workforce, about 11 million people, is being supported by one of the government’s job schemes, masking the real impact on employment of the virus and lockdown but the impact can be seen elsewhere.’
Early data suggests that there were around 650,000 fewer people on payrolls in June 2020 than there were just three months earlier, despite the government’s job schemes. At the same time, job vacancies in April to June were the lowest since such records began in 2001.
In more positive news, The Telegraph leads with a breakthrough for Oxford University in their quest to find a Covid-19 vaccine, with blood samples from UK volunteers apparently showing that the jab stimulates the body to produce antibodies and ‘killer T-cells’, creating a ‘double defence’ against the virus.
Following on from Tuesday’s news about face coverings becoming mandatory in shops, The Spectator has drawn attention to the government’s apparent inconsistency on this issue.
They draw attention to both Chris Witty, the chief medical officer, and his deputy Professor Jonathan Van-Tam previously telling the public there was ‘no evidence’ that wearing a face covering helps slow the spread of the virus.
In fact, at one point, the Advertising Standards Agency was prosecuting companies who were advertising masks as a preventative measure.
An only last weekend, Michael Gove was telling us that face coverings should be a matter of personal choice. The Spectator suggests that the government is being swayed more by opinion polls and focus groups than by genuine science.
Perhaps a combination of the two lies behind Boris Johnson’s consideration of York as a potential temporary home for MPs and peers when the Palace of Westminster undergoes its multi-billion pound restoration.
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