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Tuesday, June 2, 1998 Published at 15:42 GMT 16:42 UK

Business: Business Diary

June 15-21

Company results in italic
Interim (half-year) results =(I)
Final (full year) results = (F)
E = expected

June 15

EU European Summit, Cardiff: PM and Chancellor attending
German Retail Sales (Apr) (E)
Japan Machinery Orders (Apr) (E)
German Current Account (Apr)

June 16

UK Retail Prices Index (May)
UK PSBR (May)
UK British Chamber of Commerce Conference, Birmingham
Speakers: Eddie George, Ken Clarke and Peter Lilley
EU European Summit, Cardiff
US Consumer Prices (May)
Eurotherm

June 17

UK Unemployment (May)
UK People in Employment (Feb-Apr)
UK Average Earnings (Mar)
UK Labour Force Survey (Feb-Apr)
UK Regional Labour Market Statistics
UK British Chamber of Commerce Conference, Birmingham
Speakers: Margaret Beckett, David Blunkett

June 18

UK Retail Sales (May)
UK M4 (Prov) May
UK MO (F) (May)
UK Bank Lending (May)
UK Building Society Lending (May)
US Trade Balance (Apr)
US Current Account (Q1)
Securicor

June 19

US Treasury Budget (May)

Headline UK inflation rose to 4% last month from 3.5% . Underlying inflation went up to 3% from 2.6%, but the core rate, which excludes indirect taxes and mortgage interest payments, rose only to 2.2% from 2.1%.

The substantial headline rise was taken relatively quietly since the increase was attributed to higher motoring duties from the Budget and to increased housing costs following the reduction of Miras.

The financial year for 1998-9 began well so far as the Public Sector Borrowing Requirement was concerned.

Increased government tax revenue provided a surplus in the PSBR of Ł3.4bn for April. However, there is little leeway in the PSBR since the forecast for this year is only Ł2.3bn (excluding windfall taxes).

Most interest this week will be focused on the Labour market statistics. Last month unemployment (based on the old claimant count) fell to 1,356,100 (4.8%) and seems to be levelling out.

Emphasis is now being put on unemployment as measured by the ILO convention and, principally, the new monthly indicator of People in Employment: last month this stood at 27,020,000, or 73.3% of those of working age.

The most closely scrutinised data of all will be Average Earnings, now rising at 4.9%pa - the highest rate since 1992.

Public sector increases are running at at rate of 2.6%pa, whereas private sector earnings are increasing by 5.6 %pa.