Here’s a more detailed take from our economic correspondent, Tim Wallace, who has crunched the numbers to find that there were more than 1m job vacancies in July – the first time the UK has ever hit that number:
Britain added another 182,000 jobs last month as most of the remaining Covid restrictions were removed, raising hopes that furloughed workers will be able to return to their jobs or find new roles when the scheme closes at the end of September.
Payroll employment, which measures those paid under the PAYE system, climbed to 28.9m.
That is up sharply from last year’s low point of 28.1m in November 2020, according to the Office for National Statistics, but is not yet back up to the pre-Covid level of 29.06m in February 2020.
It means the economy still has further to go before declaring victory over the pandemic recession, but is making vital progress in the months before the furlough scheme comes to an end.
“The world of work continues to rebound robustly from the effects of the pandemic,” said Jonathan Athow, deputy national statistician for economic…
