Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news
- Latest: US retail sales dropped in May
- Full story: UK unemployment rate drops again as firms hire more staff
- 7am: UK jobless rate drops to 4.7% in February-April
- Payrolled employees surged by 197,000 in May to 28.5m
- Vacancies up as firms look to hire
- Redundancies fall to pre-Covid levels.. Youth employment at critical moment
2.24pm BST
US producers kept hiking their prices in May, in another sign that inflationary pressures are building.
Producer prices rose by 6.6% per year in May, the largest increase since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began calculating 12-month data in November 2010.
“US producer prices jumped much more than expected to 6.6% in May; this could put a bit of pressure on the Fed tomorrow in how they word their comments on inflation and the outlook for rates.
Meanwhile, retail sales missed expectations, showing a big drop over April, suggesting that the consumer recovery may not be as strong as thought, but this is only one data point in a strong recovery.”
2.10pm BST
Highlights (prior month):
Clothing +3% (-2%)
Eating, drinking +1.8% (+4.5%)
Health/personal care +1.8% (+1%)
Sporting goods -0.8% (-2.3%)
E-commerce -0.8% (-0.3%)
Furniture -2.1% (-0.7%)
Electronics -3.4% (+1.5%)
Motor vehicles/parts -3.7% (+4.3%)
Building materials -5.9% (-2.3%)
