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Rachel Reeves' £20bn tax raid leads to thousands of job losses as wage growth cools - DAILY STAR
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Thousands of workers got the boot in June, according to bombshell official figures, turning up the heat on the Bank of England to tackle the fallout from Chancellor Rachel Reeves' eye-watering £20bn tax grab when they meet in August.
Bank Governor Andrew Bailey has sounded the alarm that a "softening" jobs market might force rate-setters into slashing interest rates deeper than anyone saw coming, as employers' national insurance hikes push firms to whack up prices for punters.
The number of people on company payrolls plummeted by roughly 41,000 in June whilst unemployment soared to 4.7 per cent - the highest it's been in four years.
Over the 12 months leading up to June, a staggering 178,000 people found themselves turfed out of their jobs. Just two months back, unemployment was sitting at 4.4 per cent, as reported by City AM.
The ONS also reckoned that UK job vacancies nosedived by 56,000 over three months to 727,000 - marking the 36th month on the trot that vacancy numbers have taken a tumble.
Job openings shrank across 14 out of 18 industry sectors, suggesting businesses have "curtailed hiring plans" according to Capital Economics' Paul Dales.
"Yesterday's inflation release [showing a 3% year-on-year rise in prices] provided some evidence that businesses are responding to higher NICs and the minimum wage by raising their selling prices. But the bigger response appears to be the reduction in headcounts, which should eventually weigh on inflation," Dales said. Matthew Elliott, president and founder of the Jobs Foundation, reckoned the latest plunge proved the UK was smack bang in the middle of a "serious jobs recession".
"The steepest fall in employment since the pandemic is a serious wake up call to the government," he declared.
"The hike to employer NICs has had the predicted damaging impact on jobs, and businesses are now worrying about further tax rises to come in the Autumn Budget."
