Making learning and work count Labour market LIVE from Learning and Work Institute 15 June 2021
Learning and Work Institute comment "These figures include reopening in February to April 2021, and the annual changes include the first effects of the pandemic on the labour market in February to April 2020. The pandemic has affected the surveys reported in these statistics, and we expect that next month's statistics will include some substantial revisions as ONS make more use of the HMRC employee information from tax records to calibrate the surveys." |
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Chart 1: UK unemployment (ILO) The latest unemployment rate has fallen by 0.3 percentage points in the quarter to 4.7%. The experimental weekly figures are down to 4.2% in the last week of April. |
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Chart 2: The claimant count and UK unemployment compared The number of unemployed people who are claiming unemployment-related benefits is now 883,000 higher than the number of unemployed in the official measure. |
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Chart 3: Youth unemployment The number of unemployed young people decreased by 7,000 since last month’s figures, to 529,000. Meanwhile, the number of young Universal Credit or Jobseeker’s Allowance claimants has fallen by last month by 22,400, to 477,900. |
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Chart 4: Young people not in employment, full-time education or training The number of out of work young people who are not in full-time education (918,000) decreased by 86,000 in the last quarter , or 8.6%. The fall was fairly evenly balanced between the unemployed and the inactive. |
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Chart 5: Youth long-term unemployment (six months and over, 18-24) Youth long-term unemployment (which can include students) has risen by 63,000 over the last year and is now 215,000. |
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Chart 6: Adult long-term unemployment (12 months and over, 25+) Adult long-term unemployment has risen by 89,000 over the last year and is now 299,000. Those who lost their jobs with the first lockdown are now starting to appear in these February to April figures, and more will now have passed the 12-month threshold. The fall in long-term unemployment numbers in the first lockdown period of 2020 (April to June 2020) could be due to long-term unemployed people stopping looking for work at that time. Later, they then resumed looking for work and may have counted their unemployment from when they lost their job, missing out the lockdown period, if so they would have come back into the figures. |
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Chart 7: Unemployment rates by age The 18 to 24 year old unemployment rate (including students) is 11.7% of the economically active – excluding one million economically inactive students from the calculation. The rate for those aged 25 to 49 is 3.6%. For those aged 50 and over it is 3.6%. The quarterly change is down 1.5 for 18 to 24 year olds, down 0.1 for 25 to 49 year olds, and down 0.3 for the over-50s. Chart 8: Unemployment rate changes by age (counting February 2020 as 100) The 18 to 24 year old unemployment rate (including students) is 1.2 percentage points higher than in February 2020. This is much closer to the changes for other age-groups than had been the case in recent months. The change for those aged 25 to 34 is 0.9. The change for those aged 35 to 49 is 0.8. The change for those aged 50 to 64 is 0.7 The change for those aged over 65 is 0.1 |
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Chart 9: Vacancies – whole economy survey Headline vacancies this month rose by 96,000 to 758,000. The ONS' experimental single-month vacancy figures has risen by 312,000 in the last quarter. The headline ONS vacancy figure is both seasonally adjusted and a three-month average. The chart shows both series. |
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Chart 10: Experimental single month vacancies – whole economy survey The Office for National Statistics experimental single month vacancy estimates include sectoral information. As these are not seasonally adjusted, it is better to look at annual changes. To compare the extent to which vacancies have rebounded, the chart compares changes over two years, between the latest figures (May 2021) and May 2019. The numbers are thousands of vacancies, under each number, and on the right, the annual change in thousands of vacancies. |
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Chart 11: Unemployed people per vacancy There are 2.4 unemployed people per vacancy. This has fallen back as the number of vacancies has risen and unemployment has fallen. |
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Chart 13: Online vacancies to early March from Adzuna Job vacancies are 129% of the February 2020 level. This is now the highest in this series (starting in February 2018). All regions are above the February 2020 level. Only London, the South East and Northern Ireland are not at post-2018 maxima. |
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Chart 14: UK employment Employment is up by 11,000 on the figure published last month, to 32,487,000. The chart shows both the official figures and the experimental weekly figures. The trend is likely to be upwards, as shown by the experimental weekly figures. |
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Chart 15: Employment rate in the UK The employment rate is up by 0.2 percentage points over the quarter, to 75.2%. The chart shows both the official figures and the experimental weekly figures. The trend is likely to be upwards, as is shown by the weekly figures (the latest one is 75.6, rounded up to 76 in Chart 15 below). |
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Chart 16: Economic inactivity – the long-term sick or disabled The numbers of people who are economically inactive, that is, not working and not currently looking for work, who are long-term sick or disabled has been trending down over the last few months, after a longer rise. |
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Chart 17: Economic inactivity – people looking after family The survey figures (showing those looking after family) and not doing paid work or looking for paid work have flattened out in the last few months. |
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Chart 18: Economic inactivity – other inactive In the Coronavirus period, people who were not working or looking for work due to Covid were included in this group. The number in this category increased sharply at the time, and has continued at a high level. A very high proportion of this group want to work, and this increased over the period of the pandemic. |
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Chart 19: Employment rate quarterly change in regions – February to April 2021 In the latest figures, 4 regions showed a rise in the employment rate on last year, led by Scotland and Yorkshire and the Humber. The employment rate fell in 8 regions, with the largest falls in the East Midlands, North West and South West. |
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Chart 20: Unemployment rate quarterly change in regions – February to April 2021 This year, 11 regions showed a rise in the unemployment rate, led by London, Wales and the East Midlands. The unemployment rate fell in one region, Scotland. |
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Chart 21: Inactivity rate quarterly change in regions – February to April 2021 This year, 7 regions showed a rise in the inactivity rate, led by the North West and the South West. The inacivity rate fell in 4 regions, led by Wales, the West Midlands and Yorkshire and the Humber. |
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