The labour market shifted up a gear in the first quarter as companies hired staff and halted layoffs in anticipation of a buoyant economic reopening.
The Office for National Statistics said that payrolls had increased by 97,000 between March and April, despite the lockdown, marking five consecutive months of employee growth, while the employment rate for the quarter to March rose for the first time since the pandemic began.
Unemployment fell by 121,000 to 1.62 million, taking the jobless rate down to 4.8 per cent, the third month running it has declined. The redundancy rate fell by a record amount and vacancies climbed to near-pre-Covid levels in April.
The solid figures effectively banished fears of a return to 1980s-style mass unemployment and underscored the Bank
