Capital jobless figures on rise

ALL regions in the UK have seen a rise in unemployment, but London’s was the most notable with an increase of 2.7%.

According to the study, the capital’s workforce decreased by 60,000 in the last three months of 2020. The economic collapse has led to a mass exodus from the capital, as people look for cheaper accommodation with more green space while working from home.

The accountancy firm PwC said the number of people living in the capital could fall by more than 300,000 this year, from a record level of about 9 million in 2020 to as low as 8.7 million. This would end decades of growth with the first annual drop since 1988.

Large-scale moves out of the city would have huge knock-on effects for the businesses that serve inner London communities, such as coffee shops, pubs and hairdressers, which have spent large majorities of the pandemic closed to customers.

Catherine McGuiness, policy chair of the City of London Corporation, told Yahoo Finance UK:

“The big financial and professional services firms, or even the small ones, are doing perfectly well working remotely.

“It’s the supporting businesses that really rely on footfall that are going to be struggling.

“People are going to face enormous challenges.”

London is home to a high proportion of people working in shut-down sectors such as hospitality and retail.

ONS figures show that London has the highest proportion of service-based jobs, at more than nine in 10.

For this reason, many people fear city centres across the country, including London, could become ghost towns in the near future.

Although the Government has gone to great lengths to roll out job support schemes for hard-hit sectors, many businesses have still been forced to close or make cuts.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak said: “Protecting jobs and the economy has been my main focus since this pandemic began – through the furlough scheme alone, we have protected 11.2 million jobs.

“As we progress on our roadmap to recovery, I will continue to put people at the heart of the Government’s response through our Plan For Jobs – supporting and creating jobs across the country.”

For the three months ending February 2021, the highest employment rate estimate in the UK was in the southeast (78.4%) and the lowest was in Northern Ireland (69%).

However, all regions saw a decrease in the employment rate compared with the same period last year, with Northern Ireland seeing the largest (down 3.5%) and Yorkshire and The Humber with the smallest (0.1%).