【每日晨读金融时报】Reeves under fire as Britain sheds jobs for a fifth month

Payroll employ­ment in the UK fell for the fifth month in a row in June and wage growth slowed, in the latest sign that the gov­ern­ment’s tax rises, a higher min­imum wage and the US trade war are hit­ting the jobs mar­ket.Employ­ers cut head­count by 41,000 last month, accord­ing to the Office for National Stat­ist­ics, while May’s fig­ures were revised to a drop of 25,000 against a pre­vi­ous estim­ate of 109,000.Staff num­bers have fallen 178,000, or 0.6 per cent, over the past year.The run of job losses lays bare the chilling effect of the £25bn rise in national insur­ance con­tri­bu­tions announced in Rachel Reeves’ Octo­ber Budget. Employ­ers have cut staff in seven of the eight months since the announce­ment. The meas­ure took effect in April, along­side a rise in the min­imum wage and the start of Don­ald Trump’s trade war.Tina McK­en­zie, policy chair of the Fed­er­a­tion of Small Busi­nesses, cited “a weight of evid­ence that if you make it more expens­ive and ris­kier to give someone a job, the res­ult will be fewer jobs”. But eco­nom­ists said that the upward revi­sions to the payroll fig­ures for May, and for earlier months, meant the over­all pic­ture was less bleak than pre­vi­ously feared, with the jobs mar­ket soften­ing, rather than col­lapsing.“Employ­ment is fall­ing far less quickly than the [Mon­et­ary Policy Com­mit­tee] feared before today’s data,” said Rob Wood, of the Pan­theon Mac­roe­co­nom­ics con­sult­ancy, point­ing to the revi­sions.Sep­ar­ate ONS data showed wage growth cool­ing, with aver­age earn­ings, exclud­ing bonuses, eas­ing to 5 per cent in the three months to May from a year earlier.Ana­lysts said that the slow­down in wage growth should pave the way for the Bank of Eng­land to cut interest rates from 4.25 per cent to 4 per cent when the MPC meets next month.However, the case for fur­ther rate cuts after August is less clear, with data released this week show­ing that infla­tion rose unex­pec­tedly to 3.6 per cent in May, higher than in other big European eco­nom­ies and above the BoE’s 2 per cent tar­get.1.alongside词性：介词 / 副词中文释义：与……一起；在……旁边；同时发生例句：The new policy was introduced alongside a major tax reform.这项新政策是与一项重大税改一同推出的。She worked alongside scientists and engineers.她与科学家和工程师并肩工作。语气说明：中性、正式或口语皆可，强调“并肩、并列”，常用于合作、配套、同步的情境。比 “together with” 更有“并肩/并行”的结构感。2.bleak词性：形容词中文释义：惨淡的，凄凉的，没有希望的（用于前景、未来、环境、气候等）例句：The economic outlook remains bleak.经济前景依旧黯淡。The landscape was bleak, with grey skies and barren fields.景色凄凉，天空灰蒙蒙，田野光秃秃。语气说明：语气偏负面，强调“缺乏希望、温度、活力”，在新闻中常用来形容前景（prospect）、市场（market）、政策环境等。3.pave the way (for)词性：固定短语中文释义：为……铺路；为……创造条件；为……打下基础例句：The agreement paves the way for deeper economic cooperation.该协议为深化经济合作铺平了道路。Her early research paved the way for the discovery of a vaccine.她的早期研究为疫苗的发现奠定了基础。语气说明：积极、中性，带“为未来铺设基础”的意味，常用于政策、科技、变革语境，带有“战略部署”“准备工作”的感觉。

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