Your commercial news round-up: UK unemployment, inflation, Jaguar, Coca-Cola

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UK unemployment has climbed to its highest level in four years, while inflation has unexpectedly surged. Meanwhile, Jaguar Land Rover is shedding hundreds of jobs amid trade tensions and US President Donald Trump has implied that Coca-Cola may be making a change to its recipe in the US following health concerns. Read on for a more in-depth summary on these stories.  

• UK unemployment has risen to 4.7% in the three months to May 2025, according to figures released by the Office for National Statistics on Thursday. This marks a 0.1% increase from April and the highest unemployment rate since June 2021. The labour market “continues to weaken”, with UK vacancies falling for the 36th consecutive month to 727,000 in June. Head of economics at the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, Suren Thiru, said: “These dispiriting figures probably seal the deal on an August interest rate cut.” Amid an economic contraction of 0.1% in May and rise in inflation to 3.6% last month, the Bank of England (BoE) is under pressure to cut interest rates at its next meeting on 7 August. Chief UK economist at Capital Economics, Paul Dales, said that businesses appear to be cutting headcounts in response to cost pressures and predicts that the BoE “will continue to cut interest rates gradually from 4.25% now to 3%”.
   
• The rise in UK inflation to 3.6% in June 2025 came as a surprise, after City economists and the BoE had forecast that it’d remain at May’s rate of 3.4%. The increase was primarily driven by a smaller year-on-year fall in petrol and diesel prices and a continued rise in food and drink inflation, which reached the highest level since February 2024 (4.5%). The rise moves inflation further from the BoE’s 2% target and comes amid concerns over the impact of the government’s recent £25 billion increase in employment taxes. Some analysts have suggested that businesses may be passing these costs onto consumers, with notable price increases in restaurant meals, hotel stays and groceries. Director of insight at the British Retail Consortium, Kris Hamer, cited “the ongoing impact of the last budget and poor harvests caused by the extreme weather” as key drivers of recent price increases. Meanwhile, Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride said: “Labour’s decision to tax jobs and ramp up borrowing is killing growth and stoking inflation – making everyday essentials more expensive.”
   
• ​Britain's automotive manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has revealed plans to cut up to 500 management roles in the UK, following a decline in sales linked to US trade tariff uncertainty. The 15.1% drop in sales in the three months ended in June was partly attributed to the carmaker’s decision to temporary pause exports to the US in April, following US President Donald Trump’s 25% duty on all foreign-made vehicles. A planned wind-down of older Jaguar models also contributed to the decline. To manage rising costs, JLR is set to launch a voluntary redundancy scheme, with the reduction expected to affect no more than 1.5% of its British workforce. While the tariff for UK carmakers has since dropped to 10% after Trump and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s trade deal, car industry expert Professor David Bailey said it’s still "a big increase" from the previous tariff of 2.5%. JLR said the trade deal has given the company “confidence to invest £3.5bn” per year and that the redundancy scheme was “part of normal business practice”.
   
• On Wednesday 16 July, Trump implied that Coca-Cola may be replacing high-fructose corn syrup for cane sugar in the US beverage. On Truth Social, the social media platform Trump founded, he stated: "I have been speaking to Coca-Cola about using REAL Cane Sugar in Coke in the United States, and they have agreed to do so.” The move comes after Trump’s Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr raised concerns about the health effects of corn syrup. According to the Guardian, Coca-Cola initially expressed appreciation for Trump’s “enthusiasm” and said that “more details on new innovative offerings within our Coca-Cola product range will be shared soon”. However, on Thursday 17 July, the company released a positive statement about the use of high-fructose corn syrup. The brand reassured consumers that the ingredient is “safe” and that its “soft drinks do not contain any harmful substances”. Prior to the statement, president and CEO of the Corn Refiners Association, John Bode, criticised the potential change: “Replacing high fructose corn syrup with cane sugar would cost thousands of American food manufacturing jobs, depress farm income, and boost imports of foreign sugar, all with no nutritional benefit."

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This article has been created with the assistance of Copilot.