Pressure piling on PM to ease lockdown amid more evidence of economic ‘disaster’

The Government is facing further pressure to cut lockdown restrictions as new figures laid bare the damage being caused to the labour market. The latest unemployment data was published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on Tuesday just hours before the Prime Minister meets with his Cabinet. New figures suggested the down turn had yet to feed through fully into unemployment thanks to the job retention scheme but there was a sharp drop in the number of paid employees, down by 2.1% or 612,000 in May compared with March, and a huge increase in benefit claims. The ONS said there was a decline in hours worked by people in jobs, while jobless claims under Universal Credit jumped 23.3% month-on-month in May to 2.8 million and soared 125.9% or 1.6 million since March when the UK was placed in lockdown.