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Labour Market Report

Number 25 April 2012

In this report:

• Employment and unemployment
• Full-time and part-time work
• Regional Variations
• Redundancies and Vacancies
• Average Weekly Earnings

Employment and unemployment

The most recent labour market statistics cover December 2011 to February 2012, when there were 29,170,000 people in employment. This was a rise of 53,000 on the quarter but a fall of 57,000 on the year. The employment rate for those aged 16 to 64 was 70.4%, a rise of 0.1% from the prior three months and a fall of 0.3% on the year.

Unemployment, on the International Labour Organisation measure, fell by 35,000 over the quarter. The unemployment rate fell by 0.1% to 8.3%. The number of people out of work for over twelve months rose by 26,000 in the quarter to 883,000 (33.3% of all unemployed people). The number of people out of work for over twenty four months has risen by 54,000 to 423,000 over the past year.

The number of unemployed men fell by 43,000 whilst the number of unemployed women rose by 8,000. Over the past year the number of unemployed men has risen by 5.0% and the number of unemployed women has risen by 9.7%.

The claimant count measure of unemployment rose by 3,600 to 1,613,000, an increase of 145,200 on the year. The claimant count has now been rising for over a year.

Full-time and part-time work

Whilst the fall in unemployment is welcome it was driven by an increase in part-time rather than full-time work.

The number of people in full-time work actually continued to fall, with the entire increase in employment explained by a rise in part-time work. In the most recent quarter the number of people in full-time work fell by 27,000 whilst the number of people in part-time work rose by 80,000.

Much of this increase in part-time work is involuntary and represents 'under-employment'. The number of people working part-time who say they would like a full-time job but cannot find one rose by 89,000 to 1,400,000. This is double the number of people in this situation before the recession.

The number of people employed on temporary contracts who say they would like a permanent contract rose by 38,000 on the quarter to 627,000. The total number of workers in a part-time job who would like a full-time position and on a temporary contract who would like a permanent position is now over 2 million.

Regional Variations

There have been improvements in the unemployment rate in a number of the regions, the North East, Yorkshire and Humber, East Midlands, West Midlands, East of England, South East, and Scotland. While this remains good news, when the data is compared to a year ago only the West Midlands and Northern Ireland have experienced an improvement in the unemployment rate.

Unemployment rate (16+, %)

Redundancies and Vacancies

In December - February 2012 there were 174,000 redundancies, up 10,000 from September - November and 24,000 from June - August 2011. Redundancies for men have risen by 24,000 over the quarter while women's redundancies which had been rising during 2011 have seen a fall of 17,000.

Provisional vacancy figures for January to March 2012 are 464,000, the vacancy figure for December- February 2012 was 473,000. The number of unemployed people per job vacancy which has been rising since 2011, has fallen from 5.9 per job vacancy to 5.6. However at the same time our regular TUC analysis on employment blackspots shows that the top employment blackspots this month have seen an increase in the number of unemployed people per job vacancy, and a quarter of local authorities still have a ratio in double numbers.

March 2011- Employment Blackspots

Average Weekly Earnings

Pay growth continued to slow. The annual growth rate of average weekly earnings fell by 0.2% to 1.1% in February; regular pay growth (excluding bonus payments) is running at 1.6%. Both rates are well below inflation and real incomes continue to fall.

Pay growth was strongest in the wholesaling, retailing, hotels & restaurants sector at 3.1%, however the level of weekly earnings in this sector (£307) is still the lowest of any industry group.

Data from Income Data Services suggests that median pay settlement in the three months to February was 2.5%, well above the weaker picture emerging from average weekly earnings. It is therefore possible that the weak pay growth reflects a compositional effect driven by the rise in part-time work and 'underemployment'.

Newsletter (800 words) issued 23 Apr 2012