The Bank of England has kept interest rates on hold at 4.5%, warning that US President Donald Trump's trade war has intensified global economic uncertainty. The Bank says there are indications an increasing number of companies plan to let workers go when national insurance contributions rise next month, which Governor Andrew Bailey says is a cause for concern. Report by Jonesia. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00Your agents are feeding back on employment and pay intentions.
00:04They're telling you that firms' employment intentions are now negative,
00:08with more firms reporting hiring pauses or freezes,
00:11and saying they will review staffing levels through natural attrition or redundancies
00:16if the outlook does not improve.
00:18Is that cause for concern?
00:20Something I watch very carefully, and by the way,
00:22when I go around the country with our agents, which I do regularly,
00:25I pick up that message as well.
00:27Now, I should say, however, again, that it hasn't yet come through
00:31in some of the early indicators that we look at,
00:34such as notifications of redundancies,
00:36because firms have to notify these things ahead of time.
00:40So we're not seeing that yet, but I'm watching this very carefully
00:43because it's one of the things that I think, if that starts to come through,
00:49we will obviously have to take very seriously into account.