The latest labour market statistics indicate that the Government's Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) has so far been successful at staving off redundancies and bolstering employment. However, the new figures only cover up to the end of May and the data also provides other signs that the labour market is starting to contract, with both job vacancies and hours worked down significantly since March. In addition, early estimates for June 2020 from the HMRC's Pay As You Earn Real Time Information (PAYE RTI) indicate that the number of employees on UK payrolls fell by 2.2% (649,000) compared with March 2020.
