Beneath the headline figures showing a strong British labour market, the ebb and flow of jobs and businesses being created and destroyed is showing a pattern associated with the onset of recession, research suggested.

Employers in Britain created almost 400,000 jobs last year - a bright spot in a slowing economy weighed down by Brexit worries and weakening global trade.

But academics at the Enterprise Research Centre said there were some unpromising signals when looking at the jobs data split between new and existing firms.

Start-up businesses contributed roughly 1 million jobs in 2018, cancelling out a net 613,000 drop in employment across established companies. This looks unlikely to be sustained, with the rates of business "births" and "deaths" now converging - often a poor omen for the economy, particularly if the death rate overtakes the birth rate. The authors of the report said this trend should be viewed in a longer-term context, rather than as a result of temporary Brexit uncertainty sweeping the economy.