Technology has created more jobs than it has destroyed, says 140 years of data. Study of census results in England and Wales since 1871 finds rise of machines has been a job creator rather than making working humans obsolete. In the 1800s it was the Luddites smashing weaving machines. These days retail staff worry about automatic checkouts. Sooner or later taxi drivers will be fretting over self-driving cars.

Small businesses may no longer have to fill out time-consuming surveys about their activities in a shake-up to the way data about the UK economy is gathered.
Britain's statisticians will rely less on what business have to say about their activities and more on what the taxman is collecting from them, in an attempt to improve how we estimate the strength of the UK's economy - and cut costs for companies.

The Bank of England hit the public with a barrage of economic forecasts this week but made no mention of what may prove the biggest influence on when it starts to raise interest rates -- what the U.S. Federal Reserve does next.

The British central bank surprised some investors on Thursday by sounding relaxed about keeping rates at a record low 0.5 percent, where they have sat since the nadir of the financial crisis more than six years ago.