Courtesy of the Learning & Work Institute
| Labour market LIVE from Learning and Work Institute 18 May 2016
Learning and Work Institute comment The labour market figures published on 18 May suggest that the labour market is going sideways. Duncan Melville, Chief Economist at Learning and Work Institute, commented: “The labour market is moving in the wrong direction with employment barely up and unemployment rising over the quarter. The labour market has slowed, with employment showing only a modest increase and unemployment flat in the latest quarterly numbers. In the first quarter of 2016, employment rose by 44,000 compared to quarterly employment growth of around 200,000 just a few months ago. The level of vacancies in the economy has fallen for the third month in succession. This slowing in the labour market may reflect pre-EU referendum economic uncertainties with the possibility that employers are delaying hiring decisions until the result of the June referendum is known. The figures are unlikely, at this stage, to reflect any impact from the National Living Wage as they relate to the first quarter of 2016, before it came into force at the start of April. One worrying recent development in the labour market is that the proportion of people who are working in a temporary job because they cannot find a permanent job has stabilised at around a third in the last year, after falling in the initial labour market upswing. Full employment should not be seen simply as a matter of high employment or low unemployment, but also as allowing people to work in a way that suits their needs and aspirations.” Employment rose by 44,000 between October to December 2015 and January to March 2016. In the last 12 months employment has grown by 409,000. Unemployment fell by 2,000 between October to December 2015 and January to March 2016 and the unemployment rate stayed at 5.1% in the quarter the lowest level for 10 years. The fall in the claimant count takes account of normal seasonal effects but adjusted figures are not published for local areas. The actual number of claimants, nationally, fell by 20,900 between March and April, compared to the adjusted fall of 2,400. Therefore, it should not be surprising that figures for local areas will show larger falls compared to the national picture. The proportion of people leaving the claimant count (or the ‘leavers rateÂ’) has fallen. At 18.2%, it is now well below the level in early 2015 of 20.7%. The number of new claims has fallen . JobseekerÂ’s Allowance off-flow rates for JSA claimants of all durations reduced. Off-flow rates, however, remain at historically high levels. Youth unemployment is showing a quarterly rise. There are still 631,000 unemployed young people, and 414,000 (5.7% of the youth population) who are unemployed and not in full-time education. The proportion of unemployed young people (not counting students) who are not claiming JobseekerÂ’s Allowance, and are therefore not receiving official help with job search, is now 62.6% and has risen by 23 percentage points since October 2012. A total of 101,000 were counted as in employment while on ‘government employment and training programmesÂ’, where the Office for National Statistics continues to count Work Programme (etc.) participants as ‘in employmentÂ’ by default. This number fell 3,000 this quarter. Self-employment rose 105,000 this quarter and remains at a historically high proportion of employment. Employee numbers rose 99,000 in the quarter. Involuntary part-time employment fell this quarter by 21,000 to 1.2 million, 14.9% of all part-time workers.The proportion remains more than double that in 2004. |
