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“I want a job, that’s what I really want. If I can work I’m happy.”
Kara Burgess is eloquent, educated, and unemployed.

She’s 29 and speaks passionately about her interests; she loves reading and caring for her pet dog. But there’s a weariness to her. It’s perhaps explained, at least in part, by her struggle to find work.

Image: Jonathan Egan left his job a few years ago to care for his elderly parents and since they died he’s struggled to get another one
She’s been unemployed since 2018 when debilitating depression meant she had to leave her job in a call centre.
With professional help and hard work she’s now much better but coronavirus has thrown another huge hurdle in her way.

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“I had an interview a week before we went to lockdown,” she explains. “I was getting good feedback, really really good feedback, to the point that we were certain I was going to get a job offer.”

But lockdown hit and she later learned the position had been withdrawn, the company like so many, couldn’t afford more staff.

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“It’s really demoralising.”
“The biggest impact it will have is on my mental health,” she says. “My days are all the same at the moment, I’ll get up, walk my dog, feed my dog and then watch TV and Netflix.

Image: Jonathan Egan has been looking for work with the help of the Shaw Trust
“If it continues much longer, I can’t keep saying to myself ‘oh it’s just a short term thing to be going though.’ I want to work, I want to help, I want to earn. I’m ready to work, I really am.”
Ms Burgess is being supported by the Shaw Trust, the largest not-for-profit employment support service in the UK.
Amongst other things it helps deliver a variety of government programmes aimed at getting people back to work.
She’s enrolled in one of them, the work and health programme. It helps people with additional challenges to finding jobs such as the longer term unemployed, people with disabilities and people with mental or physical health programmes.
Hers is a familiar story at the trust, but the pandemic’s rewriting the rules.

Image: The trust is helping more than 5,500 people across England look for work
Office for National Statistics (ONS) data released on Tuesday shows there are now nearly 700,000 fewer people in work than there were in March and 383,000 fewer job vacancies than at this time last year.
The official unemployment rate has risen to 4.1% and although that’s the highest it’s been in nearly two years, it’s still much lower than it was at the height of the financial crisis.
The government’s furlough scheme is still masking much of the problem and many fear the cliff edge when it concludes in October.

‘Not right to endlessly extend furlough’

The ONS data shows that much larger proportions of workers under the age of 24 and over the age of 65 have lost their jobs in the last year.
The job market’s now crowded and many seekers are newly-redundant and experienced. The old, the young and the vulnerable are being squeezed.
It’s worrying for people like Jonathan Egan. He’s in his 50s and has worked for much of his life, but he left his job a few years ago to care for his elderly parents and since they died he’s struggled to get another one.
“I’m now up against a lot more people,” he says, “and also at the same time they’ve got very, very recent experience. It feels as if I’m being pushed to the back of the list.

Image: The Shaw Trust is the largest not-for-profit employment support service in the UK
“I’ve been shortlisted on several occasions and not got the position and you start to question ‘what have I done wrong’ or ‘will I get a position anywhere?'”
But although he’s staying positive the constant knock backs have taken a toll.
He said: “I’m old school, I deal with stress in a different way, to me I tackle things day by day. The only thing I have noticed about myself is that I no longer make long plans, they’re all short-term plans.”
He and Kara are two of more than 5,500 people supported by the Shaw Trust across central England.
Referrals to the service have actually been down during lockdown, they’d usually come mostly from job centres which have either been closed or preoccupied with the spike in claims for Universal Credit.

Image: Young people have been worst affected by the jobs crisis
But staff know this drop in referrals doesn’t reflect reality. The government knows it too.
Support for the jobless was a major focus of the chancellor’s summer statement with £900m pledged for more, upskilled jobcentreplus work coaches and an extra £32m for the National Careers Service (also part delivered by Shaw Trust).
“We’re going to be busy, we’re preparing for that, we’re planning for that, we know it’s coming”, says Tanvir Ahmed, one of the support managers on the work and health programme.
“I think there’s still some anxiety out there from our staff team because there are a lot of redundancies, so are the jobs going to be out there for the people who come through our doors?”
The staff are broadly positive, they speak optimistically about new opportunities and growth markets, but there’s a nervousness too.

Coronavirus: Small firms welcome insurance judgment

The employment support sector is just a sixth of the size it was before the last recession and many more people could need help this time.
Despite all the preparation they fear the vulnerable will still be most at risk.
“The disability employment gap which previously has been around 28% to people who don’t have a disability, is increasing vastly,” says Laura Burrough, the work and health programme’s regional operations manager.
“There are some demographics that the government hasn’t responded as quickly to, for example older workers or people with health conditions or disabilities.
“Absolutely, there is a need to get young people into employment, but we haven’t seen the government, at this stage, give enough attention or the same attention to varying cohorts that may face different challenges but significant challenges.”
For Ms Burgess, despite all the setbacks staying focused will pay off.
“It’s like hitting a brick wall, you keep running up against it until it cracks”, she says, “then you’ll see you see a little light, keep hitting it even more and eventually you’ll break through. It’s just perseverance.”

The newest entrant to the group of companies which dominate Britain’s retail energy market is to raise £300m from a share sale as it pursues further international expansion and further investment in its technology platform.
Sky News has learnt that OVO Energy has asked investment bankers to approach prospective investors willing to acquire shares in the company at a valuation of between £2bn and £3bn.

The capital-raising will be the first since Japan’s Mitsubishi Corporation bought a 20% stake in OVO early last year.

Image: OVO became the UK’s second largest energy supplier when it bought SSE’s retail business
Nomura GreenTech Capital Advisors and Barclays have been appointed to work on the transaction, insiders said on Tuesday.
The share sale will underpin OVO founder Stephen Fitzpatrick’s vision of creating a British sustainable energy and technology titan as governments, regulators and major companies attempt to meet net zero carbon targets in the coming decades.

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OVO already has a presence in Australia, France and Spain, and wants to expand into other international retail supply markets.

The company also recently announced a partnership with the Italian group Eni gas e luce to deploy smart energy solutions through its Kaluza system.

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Kaluza is an intelligent energy platform which helps to optimises power usage by using artificial intelligence and machine learning, as well as simplifying vast quantities of data to improve networks’ efficiency.
Mr Fitzpatrick said recently: “Transitioning towards a clean energy system is the greatest challenge we face in the 21st century.
“€500bn of investment is planned in Europe over the next decade to tackle climate change alone.
“To succeed, we will need to develop new technology and to redesign the energy system around the customer.”
Banking sources said the OVO fundraising was likely to draw a broad range of interest from energy and infrastructure groups as well as technology investors and pension funds.

Image: Ovo has 1.5 million household customers
OVO has grown rapidly since being established by Mr Fitzpatrick in 2009.
Its most significant deal to date was its acquisition of SSE’s residential energy business in January.
The transaction, which had an enterprise value of £500m, transformed the scale of OVO’s retail operations and saw it take on the seller’s 8,000-strong workforce.
In May, it said it would cut 2,600 jobs in the wake of the merger.
Last month, the company confirmed that it was appointing Jonson Cox, the chairman of Britain’s water regulator, as a non-executive director of its retail board.
His recruitment added one of the UK’s most experienced infrastructure and utility executives to OVO Energy’s board.
Mr Cox also bring crucial regulatory experience to the company during a period when energy suppliers are under intense scrutiny from industry watchdogs.
In January, OVO was fined nearly £9m by Ofgem for issuing inaccurate statements to half a million customers between 2015 and 2018.
The new OVO Energy board, which is chaired by former Harvey Nichols boss Stacey Cartwright, encompasses customer-facing brands including the Boost, Spark and CORGI Homeplan operations.
OVO’s other shareholders include the private equity firm Mayfair Equity Partners.
Its fast-growing rivals in the UK retail energy sector include Octopus Energy, which has also sold a big stake to overseas investors in recent months.
OVO declined to comment on its planned fundraising.

Next has agreed a deal that will resurrect Victoria’s Secret UK and save 500 jobs.
The fashion-to-homeware retailer is to take a majority 51% stake in a joint venture with US-owned Victoria’s Secret after the lingerie firm’s UK arm was placed in administration in June following weak coronavirus lockdown trading that forced all non-essential stores to shut.

L Brands, the company behind Victoria’s Secret, agreed the deal following a bid process led by administrators which attracted interest from dozens of parties including M&S.

Where jobs have been lost in the UK economy
Where jobs have been lost in the UK economy

Sky News revealed back in July that Next had been granted a period of exclusivity to secure an agreement – complicated by the fact that cuts to rent bills also had to be secured from Victoria’s Secret landlords.
It had 25 leasehold stores at the time of its collapse and employed 800 people.

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Under the deal, which is subject to regulatory approval, Next gets the majority of Victoria’s Secret’s UK assets and, next year, control of its digital business.

Image: A Victoria’s Secret store is pictured in Liverpool
For Next, a tie-up would add one of the world’s best-known lingerie retail brands to a collection of fashion labels which includes Abercrombie & Fitch, Boss and Under Armour.

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According to analysts, it would also enable Next to attract younger consumers who are drawn to Victoria’s Secret’s PINK underwear and apparel brand.
Lord Simon Wolfson, its chief executive, said: “Next is very pleased at the prospect of working in partnership to expand the Victoria’s Secret brand in the UK and Ireland both in stores and online.”

Shoppers spent £155m less in supermarkets last month as the Eat Out To Help Out scheme tempted consumers back to restaurants and pubs, according to industry data.
The figures from Kantar revealed that strong growth in the grocery sector, spurred by coronavirus restrictions, slowed in August.

Spending in stores in the four weeks to 6 September dropped compared with the previous period partly due to reduced alcohol sales as people went back to bars.

Eat Out to Help Out scheme ends

Government figures earlier this month showed more than 100 million meals were claimed for under the Eat Out To Help Out scheme which ran during August.
Wine sales were down 5% and beer sales by 10% over the roughly equivalent period, according to Kantar.

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The figures overall covered the period for the 12 weeks to 6 September, which saw supermarket sales climb 10.8% compared with last year, but that slowed to 8% in the latter four weeks.

Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Kantar, said: “Grocery growth tailed off in August as the government’s Eat Out To Help Out scheme got under way and people were encouraged to return to offices and resume normal routines.”

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Among trends reported in the last four weeks by the survey was growth in sales of personal grooming sales.
Hair styling products were up 17% and hair removal treatments up 11% on the previous month, with deodorant demand up 3%.

Ocado ‘struggled with a couple of thousand deliveries’

Online supermarket sales also posted impressive growth – up 77% on the same period last year, though that was a slowdown on earlier during the pandemic.
Ocado, which launched its partnership with Marks & Spencer on 1 September, was the fastest-growing retailer for the overall 12-week period, with sales up 41.2% year-on-year.
That chimed with a trading update published earlier by the online grocer, showing bumper revenue growth for the third quarter to the end of August.
Ocado also said in its stock market statement that its customers were choosing more M&S goods than those from Waitrose – its previous delivery partner – in their shopping baskets.

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That reflected “positive customer reaction to the addition of M&S to the range”, the group said.
But it acknowledged that some shoppers had been left unable to make orders as it struggled to meet demand.

One of Britain’s big four accountancy firms has been forced to abandon plans to slash the sums it pays into thousands of employees’ pension pots following the threat of legal action.
Sky News has learnt that KPMG notified its 17,000 UK staff this week that it was “pausing” plans to temporarily reduce pension contributions for about 3,000 people.

Insiders said that roughly 500 of the affected employees had formed a collective action group to fund a legal claim against the firm.

Where jobs have been lost in the UK economy
Where jobs have been lost in the UK economy

In a memo circulated on Monday, KPMG said it had commenced the pensions consultation in July as “part of a broader range of measures to reduce overall costs in FY21 and to protect jobs in an unpredictable economic environment”.
It added: “We have decided to pause on any proposed temporary change to contributions in FY21.

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“We are continuing with our longer-term review of our pension scheme to ensure that we have an offering that is fair to all colleagues, competitive and helps attract and retain the best talent in the market.”

Sources said the proposed reduction in pension contributions to 4.5% of salary would, if implemented, have saved KPMG roughly £10m a year.

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The measure would, they added, have disproportionately affected older staff on more generous retirement funding arrangements.

Image: KPMG is one of the UK’s four big accountancy firms
Responding to an enquiry from Sky News, a KPMG spokesperson said: “Like many businesses we have been planning for a wide range of economic outturns.
“Over the course of the summer we have sought and listened to a wide range of views from colleagues on this measure and as we approach our financial year end, we now have a clearer picture of the outlook for FY21.
“As a result, we are pausing the proposed temporary change to employer pension contributions.”
With an average age of 27, most of KPMG’s UK workforce is already entitled to employer pension contributions of 4.5%.
Nevertheless, the climbdown is embarrassing for the firm, which, ironically, announced the sale of its pensions advisory business to a private equity-backed management buyout vehicle several months ago.
Like the other big four firms – Deloitte, EY and PricewaterhouseCoopers – KPMG has been exploring ways to cut costs during the coronavirus pandemic, with business clients cutting back on discretionary corporate spending.
Last week, Sky News revealed that Deloitte was exploring the sale of its restructuring arm, which handles insolvencies and sale processes for financially troubled companies, even as the COVID-19 crisis paves the way for a surge in revenues from the division.
Bill Michael, KPMG’s UK chairman, described the pandemic as “an economic disaster” in April, and further cost-cutting measures are expected from the quartet of major auditors in the coming months.
KPMG has also announced a limited number of redundancies and the closure of some business units.
Deloitte has already undertaken a process resulting in cuts to pension contributions for many staff.
The efforts to reduce costs come as the big four face radical reforms to their businesses, with the UK’s audit watchdog introducing a model called operational separation to segregate their audit and consulting businesses.
That drive has come in the wake of accounting scandals at companies such as BHS and Carillion, which collapsed with the loss of tens of thousands of jobs.

Small firms fighting for insurance pay-outs due to the coronavirus lockdown have welcomed a court judgment which should help some advance their claims – but may see others lose out.
The decision on a closely-watched test case brought by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the City watchdog, is estimated to affect 370,000 businesses and £1.2bn worth of claims.

Campaigners on behalf of the firms said the complex, 162-page ruling was a lifeline but the insurance industry said it had come down evenly on both sides.
Shares in Hiscox, one of the eight insurance companies involved in the case, rose sharply after it said the finding would result in a hit of less than £100m, £150m lower than its upper estimate of the cost.
The FCA brought the case after firms such as cafes, wedding planners and beauty parlours said they faced ruin after they were turned down by insurers when they attempted to claim for the business interruption (BI) losses caused by the lockdown.

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‘Pandemics are not included’ – insurance industry

It sought to clarify whether 21 policy wordings should pay out for closures and disruptions that were caused by the coronavirus.

Following the judgment, the FCA said the ruling had “substantially found in favour of the arguments we presented on the majority of the key issues”.

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The watchdog’s interim chief executive Christopher Woolard said: “Coronavirus is causing substantial loss and distress to businesses and many are under immense financial strain to stay afloat.
“Our aim throughout this court action has been to get clarity for as wide a range of parties as possible, as quickly as possible.”

Image: The case was brought by the Financial Conduct Authority
Mr Woolard said the judgment “removes a large number of those roadblocks to successful claims, as well as clarifying those that may not be successful”.
The judgment was welcomed by the Hiscox Action Group, representing hundreds of small firms.
Richard Leedham from Mishcon de Reya, the law firm which represented the group, said: “Today’s judgment by the High Court is one of the most significant in recent years and will provide a lifeline for small businesses across the country.”
Huw Evans, director-general of the Association of British Insurers, said: “Insurers have supported this fast-track court process led by the FCA to help bring clarity for customers and we welcome the speed with which the court has delivered a ruling.
“The judgment divides evenly between insurers and policyholders on the main issues.”

Image: Businesses in the hospitality sector were devastated by the lockdown
Court judgment does little to bring clarityAnalysis by Ian King, business presenter
It looks to be round one to the small businesses.
This morning’s 162-page judgement from the High Court appears to have found for the Financial Conduct Authority and thousands of small businesses who claimed they were entitled to make claims on business interruption policies arising disruption from COVID-19.
Potentially it means that hundreds of thousands of small businesses – at least 370,000 policyholders are thought to have been affected, chiefly in the pub, hotel and restaurant sectors – could now be in line for payouts running into hundreds of millions of pounds.
Many more policyholders, who had previously not joined the court action, may now seek recompense as well.
On the face of it, then, it is a setback for the eight insurers, including Hiscox, Zurich Re, Amlin and RSA, which participated in this test case.

Image: Shares in Hiscox rose sharply
But it is important to stress that the judgment was not a clean sweep for the plaintiffs.
As the FCA, which brought the test case, noted, the High Court found “in favour of the arguments advanced for policyholders by the FCA on the majority of the key issues”.
But the High Court did not rule that the eight defendant insurers were liable across all of the 21 different types of policy wording that featured in the test case.
In other words, policyholders are going to have to study the wording of their business interruption cover very carefully, checking against what the High Court judgment said about their particular policy.
The early indications are, though, as Kate Nicholls, chief executive of the trade body UK Hospitality was quick to point out, that business interruption insurance policies with pandemic or notifiable disease clauses are covered and that their claims should be met.
And the insurers do appear to have lost on some major points of principle.
Chief among these was their argument that the business interruption cover they provided was only for a local occurrence of a notifiable disease and only covered the effects of a local outbreak of COVID-19.
The FCA argued that whether or not there had been an outbreak of COVID-19 in the local area was not relevant and the High Court agreed, ruling that because there had been so many outbreaks of the virus, business interruption had been caused in any case.
It said that, with the exception of a couple of the policies covered in the ruling, each local individual example of business interruption should be regarded as having been caused by a number of individual outbreaks that were indivisible.
It is important to stress that this is only round one.

Image: Judges at the High Court issued a complex 162-page ruling
Both the FCA and the insurers defending the case agreed that, regardless of the High Court’s ruling, there could be a fast-track appeals process going straight to the Supreme Court.
The Association of British Insurers, the main industry body, would say only today that “it will take a little time for those involved in the court case to understand what it means and consider any appeals”.
Moreover, it is instructive to study the share price reaction of the listed companies involved in the test case, which suggests very strongly that investors think they have dodged a bullet.
RSA, for example, said today the judgement would cost it an estimated £104m that would fall to £85m following once its catastrophe reinsurance was applied.
It has, as a result, said it will resume dividend payments and its shares have accordingly risen by some 4%.
Even more dramatic was the share price reaction at Hiscox, the company regarded as having the most at stake in this case.
Its shares initially fell by 6% but have since moved sharply higher – up 16% at one point – after the company said that fewer than one third of its 34,000 UK business interruption policies would have to pay out.

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It added: “Coverage under these policies is essentially limited to those customers who were mandatorily closed by government orders, and then only in certain circumstances.
“As a result of the judgment, the group estimates additional COVID-19 claims arising from business interruption to be less than £100 million net of reinsurance…[this] is a reduction of £150 million from the upper end of the group’s previously published risk scenario.”
So, while this ruling will bring relief to many thousands of small businesses, the chances are that thousands more will remain disappointed when they check the wording of their policy against the High Court’s judgement.
It is hard not to think that this judgement has done little to bring immediate clarity for thousands of small businesses fighting for their lives.

The Treasury has hailed the furlough scheme as a success – hours after official figures showed the first rise in the UK’s jobless rate since the coronavirus lockdown.
Officials pointed to data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) that showed that more than half of the 9.6 million workers placed on the Job Retention Scheme at its height had returned to work by mid-August.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak argued the scheme, tipped to cost £54bn, had “done what it was designed to do” in saving jobs as COVID-19 forced most of the economy to be placed in effective hibernation.

Where jobs have been lost in the UK economy
Where jobs have been lost in the UK economy

Earlier in the day, the ONS had reported that Britain’s unemployment rate hit 4.1% in the three months to July as the total number of jobless rose by 62,000.
The jobless rate was the highest in nearly two years and up from 3.9% a month earlier.

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It is still yet to be fully illustrative of the economic crisis as the furlough scheme keeps the numbers down, but support for wages is to be fully withdrawn at the end of October.

There is a growing clamour among business groups, opposition politicians and unions for some form of targeted new support amid warnings from the Bank of England that the jobless rate could hit 7.5% by the year’s end, affecting three million people, as parts of the economy remain in the doldrums.

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‘Until furlough scheme ends we won’t know damage to economy’

Mr Sunak has ruled out an extension to furlough but says he is open to “innovative and effective new ways to support jobs.
He said: “We were clear at the start of the pandemic that we couldn’t save every job, but the furlough scheme has supported millions of workers and we want to help employers keep people on.
“Our Job Retention Bonus will do exactly that, supporting businesses to do the right thing.”
Payroll data released by the ONS showed that 695,000 fewer people were employed in August compared with March when the UK lockdown started – though after revisions to earlier data that was a smaller number than before.

Image: The number of paid employees in the UK is down by 700,000 since the start of the crisis
Darren Morgan, director of economic statistics at the ONS, said: “Some effects of the pandemic on the labour market were beginning to unwind in July as parts of the economy reopened.”
The number of people described as “temporarily away from work” – including those on furlough – fell in July though was still more than five million, while other measures including average hours worked and job vacancies also improved.
“Nonetheless, with the number of employees on the payroll down again in August and both unemployment and redundancies sharply up in July, it is clear that coronavirus is still having a big impact on the world of work,” Mr Morgan added.
The total number of unemployed for the three months to July was just above 1.4 million.

Image: The number of people claiming unemployment-related benefits rose to 2.7 million
The number of people claiming unemployment-related benefits – which may include those with low hours or low pay – reached 2.7 million, up 121% since March.
The figures also showed a stark contrast between the impact of the jobs crisis on different age groups.
The number of people in employment was 12,000 fewer in July than three months earlier.
But for those aged 16 to 24 years there was a fall of 156,000 – including a record decrease of 146,000 for those aged 18 to 24 – while jobs for those aged 65 and over fell by 92,000.
In contrast, there was an increase of 236,000 jobs for those aged 25 to 64 years, including a record increase of 67,000 for women in the 25 to 34 years age group.
A Sky News jobs tracker of publicly announced cuts shows that so far the aviation and retail sectors have been worst hit by the coronavirus crisis but many other parts of the economy including restaurants and sandwich chains also suffering badly.
Analysis: Still in the dark over jobs crisisBy Ed Conway, economics editor
Not for the first time, there is an air of unreality over the jobs figures today.
The unemployment rate is now starting to rise, up from 3.8% a few months ago to 4.1%.
But this is still far lower than it has been for most of recent history.
Redundancies are beginning to increase too, with more than 150,000 in the past three months – the highest rate since the aftermath of the financial crisis.

Image: The number of redundancies has increased
But the depressing likelihood is that this dramatically underplays the reality on the ground.
For the headline figures on jobs do little justice to the economic drama we know has happened over the past six months.
Millions of workers have been unable to work and have had their wages mostly paid for by the state and yet the overall employment total fell by only 12,000 in the latest three month period – because those jobs still technically exist.

Image: Young people have been worst affected by the jobs crisis
Indeed, that is the whole point of the furlough scheme.
But while there may be some good news here – employment down less than expected, earnings also down less than expected (though still falling 1% a year) – it is just as likely that since we are in unprecedented times it has become harder than ever to make sense of the jobs market.
The Office for National Statistics themselves say that the figures are less reliable than usual because they are struggling to do the survey work they usually do to put together these data.

Image: The number of hours worked has fallen sharply
In other words, we are still somewhat in the dark.
We know millions of people were reliant on the furlough scheme and that a large chunk of them have gone back to work (though frustratingly the Treasury only informs us of the latter when it feels like it, unlike in other countries).
That is tentative good news.
What we do not know is how many of the remaining jobs will come back and how many will end in redundancy.
We do not know how high the unemployment rate will climb once the support has been entirely turned off (and note that even after the furlough scheme ends there is the back to work bonus in the following months, which is a not insignificant incentive for businesses to keep on workers).
So instead we are having to rely on some alternative measures of stress in the jobs market.
The ONS has a measure of how many employees are on companies’ payrolls, and this is down just under 700,000 since the beginning of the crisis.
The scale of this fall has actually been revised down since previous releases, but then it’s hard to know what to read into this.

Image: Unemployment has started to climb
The number of people claiming universal credit has also skyrocketed, more than doubling from 1.2 million to 2.7 million in the space of a few months.
Yet while some of that increase will be people who have lost their jobs, some is also likely to be people still in work but claiming extra support.
Again: we know the direction of travel but we still have yet to know how bad things will be.
For anyone who wants to get their head round the state of the labour market, this statistical fog is deeply frustrating.
But the likelihood is it perseveres for some time yet.

Britain’s unemployment rate rose to 4.1% in the three months to July as the total number of jobless rose by 62,000, the Office for National Statistics said.
The jobless rate was up from 3.9% a month earlier – but is still yet to be fully illustrative of the economic crisis with the Treasury’s soon-to-end furlough scheme helping keep the numbers down.

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Image: Sandwich chain Pret is among employers cutting jobs during the crisis
Meanwhile, payroll data showed that 695,000 fewer people were employed in August compared to March when the UK lockdown started – though after revisions to earlier data that was a smaller number than before.
Darren Morgan, director of economic statistics at the ONS, said: “Some effects of the pandemic on the labour market were beginning to unwind in July as parts of the economy reopened.”

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The number of people described as “temporarily away from work” – including those on furlough – fell in July though was still more than five million while other measures including average hours worker and job vacancies also improved.

“Nonetheless, with the number of employees on the payroll down again in August and both unemployment and redundancies sharply up in July, it is clear that coronavirus is still having a big impact on the world of work,” Mr Morgan added.

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The total number of unemployed for the three months to July was just above 1.4 million
The number of people claiming unemployment-related benefits – which may include those with low hours or low pay – reached 2.7 million, up 121% since March.

Chancellor: ‘Hard times are here’

The figures also showed a stark contrast between the impact of the jobs crisis on different age groups.
The number of people in employment was 12,000 fewer in July than three months earlier.
But for those aged 16 to 24 years there was a fall of 156,000 – including a record decrease of 146,000 for those aged 18 to 24 – while jobs for those aged 65 and over fell by 92,000.
In contrast, there was an increase of 236,000 jobs for those aged 25 to 64 years, including a record increase of 67,000 for women in the 25 to 34 years age group.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak said: “This is a difficult time for many as the pandemic continues to have a profound impact on people’s jobs and livelihoods.
“That’s why protecting jobs and helping people back into work continues to be my number one priority.”
Mr Sunak pointed to the government’s job retention bonus, worth up to £9bn, which will reward employers who take back workers temporarily laid-off under the government-backed furlough scheme.

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But a number of MPs and business groups want the Treasury to consider extending the furlough scheme in some form, fearing that if taxpayer subsidies for those jobs ends completely as planned next month there will be a surge in unemployment.
A Sky News jobs tracker of publicly-announced cuts shows that so far the aviation and retail sectors have been worst hit by the coronavirus crisis but many other parts of the economy including restaurants and sandwich chains also suffering badly.
Analysis: Still in the dark over jobs crisisBy Ed Conway, economics editor
Not for the first time, there is an air of unreality over the jobs figures today.
The unemployment rate is now starting to rise, up from 3.8% a few months ago to 4.1%.
But this is still far lower than it has been for most of recent history.
Redundancies are beginning to increase too, with more than 150,000 in the past three months – the highest rate since the aftermath of the financial crisis.
But the depressing likelihood is that this dramatically underplays the reality on the ground.
For the headline figures on jobs do little justice to the economic drama we know has happened over the past six months.
Millions of workers have been unable to work and have had their wages mostly paid for by the state and yet the overall employment total fell by only 12,000 in the latest three month period – because those jobs still technically exist.
Indeed, that is the whole point of the furlough scheme.
But while there may be some good news here – employment down less than expected, earnings also down less than expected (though still falling 1% a year) – it is just as likely that since we are in unprecedented times it has become harder than ever to make sense of the jobs market.
The Office for National Statistics themselves say that the figures are less reliable than usual because they are struggling to do the survey work they usually do to put together these data.
In other words, we are still somewhat in the dark.
We know millions of people were reliant on the furlough scheme and that a large chunk of them have gone back to work (though frustratingly the Treasury only informs us of the latter when it feels like it, unlike in other countries).
That is tentative good news.
What we do not know is how many of the remaining jobs will come back and how many will end in redundancy.
We do not know how high the unemployment rate will climb once the support has been entirely turned off (and note that even after the furlough scheme ends there is the back to work bonus in the following months, which is a not insignificant incentive for businesses to keep on workers).
So instead we are having to rely on some alternative measures of stress in the jobs market.
The ONS has a measure of how many employees are on companies’ payrolls, and this is down just over 700,000 since the beginning of the crisis.
The scale of this fall has actually been revised down since previous releases, but then it’s hard to know what to read into this.
The number of people claiming universal credit has also skyrocketed, more than doubling from 1.2 million to 2.7 million in the space of a few months.
Yet while some of that increase will be people who have lost their jobs, some is also likely to be people still in work but claiming extra support.
Again: we know the direction of travel but we still have yet to know how bad things will be.
For anyone who wants to get their head round the state of the labour market, this statistical fog is deeply frustrating.
But the likelihood is it perseveres for some time yet.

John Boyega has stepped down from his role with perfume brand Jo Malone after the company cut him from the Chinese version of an aftershave advert he helped create.
The Star Wars actor said the decision to remove him from the advert was “wrong”, before writing on Twitter that “dismissively trading out one’s culture this way is not something I can condone”.

“Their decision to replace my campaign in China by using my concepts and substituting a local brand ambassador for me, without either my consent or prior notice, was wrong,” Boyega said.

Image: Boyega was replaced with Chinese star Liu Haoran for the version in China. Pic: Jo Malone
“The film celebrated my personal story- showcasing my hometown, including my friends and featuring my family.
“While many brands understandably use a variety of global and local ambassadors, dismissively trading out one’s culture this way is not something I can condone.”

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The London-born actor, who was a global ambassador at Jo Malone, added: “It’s back to back but I assure you this will be dealt with swiftly. I don’t have time for nonsense. We press on and strong. Stay blessed people.”

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Jo Malone had earlier apologised after removing Boyega from the advert after he was replaced with Chinese star Liu Haoran.
Boyega has been praised recently for speaking out in support of the Black Lives Matter movement following the killing of George Floyd while in police custody in the US.

John Boyega’s passionate speech

In June, the 28-year-old stood with protesters in London and delivered an emotional speech in Hyde Park, saying he did not care if speaking out harmed his career.
Figures from across Hollywood were quick to publicly support Boyega, who earlier this month accused Disney of marketing his character in Star Wars as an important figure before pushing him aside.
Speaking to British GQ, Boyega said Disney had given more “nuance” to his co-stars and suggested the company did not know how to treat him as a black actor.
It is not the first time that Boyega has been deleted from a China-based ad.
In Star Wars: The Force Awakens, he played the leading role of Finn – but despite that, Chinese posters promoting the movie removed or diminished him and other non-white characters.
Jo Malone’s parent company Estee Lauder has been contacted for comment.

Domino’s Pizza says it is hiring an additional 5,000 staff following the surge in demand for takeaway meals during the coronavirus crisis.
The chain, which reported a 5% leap in sales over the first half of its financial year covering the full UK lockdown, said its ability to remain open in that time meant more people had an opportunity to join the business.

The new jobs, which include chef and delivery driver roles, are on top of 6,000 positions previously announced by Domino’s during the pandemic as its franchisees continue to open more outlets.

Image: Domino’s is expanding while dine-in rivals such as Pizza Hut Restaurants and Pizza Express are cutting back
It builds on the recent trend of services with lockdown immunity, such as supermarkets and delivery firms, taking people on at a time when the wider economy is gearing up for a jobs crisis as the government’s furlough scheme winds down.
The Bank of England has forecast that three million could be out of work by the year’s end, given the damage that COVID-19 has inflicted on livelihoods.

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Analysis by Sky News shows hospitality to be the third worst-hit part of the economy despite the lift from the government’s Eat Out to Help Out scheme.

Where jobs have been lost in the UK economy
Where jobs have been lost in the UK economy

Domino’s, as a takeaway venture, was not able to take part but had previously said sales growth was not damaged by the discount offering during August because demand was boosted by staycationers.

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Its fortunes are in stark contrast to those of dine-in rivals Pizza Express and Pizza Hut Restaurants which are cutting outlets as a result of the lockdown damage and collectively placing more than 1,500 jobs at risk.

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In its announcement on Tuesday, Domino’s said it would also create 1,000 apprenticeships under the government’s Kickstart scheme aimed at helping young people find careers.
Chief executive Dominic Paul said: “Together, these over 6,000 new roles will help Domino’s continue to safelyserve our local communities as we head towards the busy festive period.”