ISSUE NO. 5 · FRIDAY 7 AUGUST 2026

Unemployment at 4.9%, £918m at Legal & General, and a £212bn record at Royal London

The UK unemployment rate is 4.9%, up from 4.4% at the election. The survey that measures whether business is actually growing scored 52.2 in July, comfortably above the 50 line. Both of those are true, and employers cut staff anyway for the 22nd month running — the joint-longest run in 30 years of that survey. The only other stretches like it came out of 2008 and the dotcom collapse, and both had a crash attached. This one arrived with an expansion.

Put that next to the rest of the day and the shape of the economy is hard to miss. The assets are doing well and the payroll is not. Records are being set in the savings industry by markets rising rather than by savers arriving, while the 10-year gilt sits at 5.08% — a full 1.33 points above Bank Rate, and the rate that actually prices a fixed mortgage. Money is expensive, asset prices are doing the work wages used to do, and the firms taking on more orders are doing it with fewer people.

Below in full: why 4.9% and a growing economy turned up in the same month, why Legal & General beat guidance and watched its shares fall, and what Royal London's £212bn record actually rests on. After those, the numbers, today's diary, and one calculator worth five minutes.

Lead

Business activity scored 52.2 in July. The private sector cut jobs for the 22nd month in a row.

The headline rate has gone from 4.4% to 4.9% since the election, and it flatters the picture even so — it counts people out of work and still looking, and leaves out anyone who has stopped searching. July did carry a softer edge: the gentlest pace of cuts since October 2025 and a five-month low in input costs. It also carried help nobody can bank on, with a World Cup and warm weather filling hospitality venues for a few weeks. Neither repeats in the autumn, and oil spiked during the month as hostilities between Iran and the United States flared. Employers took on more work and fewer people to do it. Read the full story →

More News

Legal & General profit rose 7% to £918m. The shares fell 1.2% anyway.

Core earnings per share were up 11% to 12.1p, ahead of guidance, and the market shrugged. The number that moved is further down the release: private markets assets up by more than a fifth to £79bn across private credit, real estate and infrastructure, with a target of £85bn by 2028. The shares are still more than 15% higher since the start of the year at 299p, which is the clue — the re-rating has already happened. This is an asset manager that happens to sell insurance, and the £85bn is the figure to hold management to. Read the full story →

A record £212bn, up from £199bn. Net inflows more than halved.

Strip the market out and the story turns. New money fell from £4.1bn to £1.8bn while gross inflows stayed flat at £22.4bn, so the record arrived because markets rose, not because savers picked a mutual. Operating profit climbed 13% to £187m. The line worth watching is protection: sales up 6% to £438m ahead of the April 2027 inheritance tax change on pensions, which is customers rearranging their affairs a year and a half early. The real test is whether the mutual can grow when markets stop doing the work. Read the full story →

The Numbers

Nothing has moved in the official data for a fourth day, so the index is the only figure doing any work: the FTSE 100 closed on Thursday at 10,904.82, less than six points off its twelve-month closing high. The gilt stays at 5.08%, 1.33 points above Bank Rate, and it is the gilt rather than Bank Rate that prices a fixed mortgage.

On the Diary

• Today, 7.00am BST — Lloyds House Price Index. Out an hour before this lands, so it is already on the wire when you read this. The monthly house-price read, published under the Lloyds name since the Halifax index was rebranded in July, and the cleanest gauge of whether prices are still drifting sideways with the gilt at 5.08%.
• Today, 9.30am BST — ONS public service productivity, January to March. The quarterly measure of what the state gets back for what it spends. With the Budget on 28 October and a windfall tax argument already running, it is the sort of figure that gets quoted at both ends of the room.

The Toolbox

One tool from the site each issue, picked to fit what has just happened. Free, no sign-up, and it shows its workings.

Statutory redundancy pay calculator

"Twenty-two months of cuts, and most people only find out what the statutory minimum pays on the day they need it."

The Close

Royal London's record came from markets rising rather than savers arriving, and new money more than halved to get there. Legal & General beat guidance and the shares fell. Both are the same signal as the jobs number: asset prices are carrying the industry while the people who ultimately fund it have been made redundant for 22 months straight. That arrangement works right up until markets stop doing the work.

If something here is wrong, or there is something you want dug into, just reply. It comes straight to me.

MJB