More Bad News for the UK Economy - No. of Employed Plummets

More worrying news for the UK economy, according to new data revealed by the Office for National Statistics, the number of employed people has fallen by the largest quarterly margin since comparable records began in 1971. The number of people in employment was 29.11 million in the three months running up to April, a fall of 271,000 on a quarterly basis.

Employment is down, the number of employed people is down, unemployment and the unemployment rate have both increased, and perhaps more worryingly of all the number of vacancies has also fallen.

Little wonder then that according to another release by the ONS, retail sales fell 0.6% between April and May. Retail sales are up on a quarterly basis on a year ago. According to the ONS the seasonally adjusted value of retail sales was 1.3% higher in the three months to May 2009 that in the same period last year. Sales volume also increased on a three monthly basis by 0.3%.

The title of the release was underlying growth slows in May. This is worrying: There has been a lot of positive news on the UK economy lately, including the rise in retail sales. This monthly drop in May could either prove that all that was a blip, or could be a blip itself, only time will tell.