The ONS’s estimate of the number of payrolled employees in the UK fell by 47,000 in December, following a smaller decline in November. On the face of it, the sharp drop in payrolled employment was troubling. Adjusting for relative population sizes, it is equivalent to a fall of more than 200,000 in US non-farm payrolls, which is the kind of fall one might expect to see in the first month of an NBER recession. In the wake of October’s Budget, we revised down our forecast for near-term growth, to include a period of stagnation through 2024 Q4 and 2025 Q1.