UK businesses re-open to boost economy, ONS figures show

More UK businesses have reopened this month as the economy slowly emerged from the Covid-19 lockdown.

That’s according to the latest healthcheck on the UK economy from the Office for National Statistics.

It found that more people have been travelling to the office, while the number of online job adverts also crept up from its recent lows and more people returned to the high street.

However, the economy is still well below its ‘pre-crisis levels’, as these findings show:

• Of responding businesses, 92% said they were trading between 29 June and 12 July 2020, compared with 86% of responding businesses between 1 and 14 June 2020 before non-essential retail was allowed to reopen in England, according to the Business Impact of Coronavirus (COVID-19) Survey (BICS).
• The proportion of adults wearing a face covering when leaving the home increased from 61% to 71% according to the latest Opinions and Lifestyle Survey (OPN).
• On 17 July, overall footfall rose to two-thirds of its level the same day a year ago, the highest since lockdown began.
• Between 10 and 17 July, the total volume of job adverts increased to just over 50% of their 2019 average.