The number of UK jobs increased in the three months to June by the most since the start of the pandemic as the reopening of the economy boosted demand for workers and created early signs of labour shortages.
Those in employment rose to 32.28m in the second quarter, up 95,000 from the previous three months, the Office for National Statistics said on Tuesday.
This was a greater increase than the 75,000 forecast by economists polled by Reuters and marked the strongest growth since the three months to February 2020, before the first Covid-19 restrictions were imposed. The rise in hiring pushed the headline unemployment rate down to 4.7 per cent.