Well, today’s employment figures suggest things had been going rather nicely up until now, with the quarter ending June adding the most private sector jobs that anyone can remember:
The number of people unemployed in the UK fell by 49,000 to 2.46 million in the three months to June, figures show.
The decline in the jobless total was the biggest drop in three years.
The number of people employed increased by 184,000, the largest quarterly rise since 1989, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.
The figures also showed that the claimant count, or those out of work and seeking unemployment benefit, fell by 3,800 in July to 1.46 million.
Trust a banker to come along and spoil the party:
The economy will be growing by about 3pc year-on-year in the second half of 2011, according to the Bank’s August Inflation Report.
This compares with the 3.5pc it was forecasting in the May report.
Mervyn King, the Bank’s governor, said Britain was facing a “choppy recovery”.
“The UK recovery is likely to continue, but the overall outlook is weaker than that presented in the May Report, reflecting the softening in confidence, the persistence of tight credit conditions and the faster fiscal consolidation,” he said.
