Unemployment across the U.K. has held steady during the coronavirus lockdown as a result of a government salary support scheme, but there are clear signals emerging that job losses will skyrocket over coming months to levels not seen since the 1980s. The Office for National Statistics said Thursday there were 649,000 fewer people, or 2.2%, on payrolls in June compared to March, when the British government imposed lockdown restrictions. That’s an indication the country’s unemployment rate is set to rise during the summer months from the still historically low level of 3.9% recorded in May. So far, Britain has been spared the sharp rises in unemployment seen in the United States, for example, because of the government’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, which pays the majority of the salaries of workers who have not been fired. Some 1.2 million employers have taken advantage of the program to […]