Coronavirus (COVID-19) roundup: 13 October 2020

ONS published the latest UK labour market statistics, as well as weekly deaths registrations in England and Wales. The main points include:

• The UK unemployment rate for the three months to August 2020 was 4.5%;

  • this is 0.6 percentage points higher than a year earlier and 0.4 percentage points higher than the previous quarter

• Redundancies increased by a record 114,000 on the quarter, with the number of redundancies reaching its highest level since May to July 2009 (227,000)

• Labour productivity, as measured by output per hour, fell by 1.8% in Quarter 2 (Apr to June) 2020; this is the largest fall since Quarter 2 2009

• There were 321 deaths involving COVID-19 in England and Wales in the week ending 2 October 2020, the highest weekly figure since the week ending 10 July 2020

• By region, the highest number of COVID-19 deaths was reported in the North West (106 deaths), followed by the North East (40)

• The total number of deaths in the week ending 2 October 2020 was 9,945 (above the five-year average for the seventh time in the past eight weeks)

Read the roundup