DAVY VIEW

Yesterday’s Pandemic Unemployment Payments (PUP) claimants data fell to 439,000, down 26,900 over the past week, so today’s COVID-19 unemployment rate should fall to 22%. Construction, retail and manufacturing have led the labour market improvement, but many services sectors, especially hotels and restaurants, which only re-opened on June 29th, have lagged behind. It is still too early to judge the pace of jobs gains against the re-opening of the economy. Meanwhile, retail sales volumes bounced back in May.