More than half a million workers in the UK have lost their jobs during the past 13 weeks of lockdown, the ONS has revealed.
Between March and May there has been a decline of 600,000 workers on UK payrolls, while the number of individuals claiming work-related benefits rose by almost one quarter, reaching 2.8 million in May.
Almost nine million workers have been furloughed under the government scheme, which has been extended to October when economists estimate the full effect of Covid-19 on the UK’s economy will be felt.
Jonathan Athow, deputy national statistician for economic statistics at the Office for National Statistics said: "The slowdown in the economy is now visibly hitting the labour market, especially in terms of hours worked.
"Early indicators for May show that the number of employees on payrolls were down over 600,000 compared with March."
He continued that the statistics may be in part misleading, noting that "not all of these people are necessarily unemployed".
According to the ONS, the total number of weekly hours worked declined to 959.9 million, a nine per cent decrease on the previous years. This was also coupled with a record decline in vacancies between March and May, down 476,000 from the previous quarter.
Ruth Gregory, senior economist for Capital Economics, noted that greater rises in unemployment ought to be expected. She said: "Despite the apparent stability of the actual unemployment rate, the labour market data were still pretty awful. And some of this will surely start to filter through into the actual unemployment figures as the government's job furlough scheme is wound down from August."
