Labour Market Profile – February 2022

The most recent data show the labour market continuing to recover from the impact of coronavirus pandemic:

• There were 29.5million Payrolled employees (a record high) – an increase of 108,000 (+0.4%) over the previous month and up 1,350,000 (+4.8%) over the previous year
• The employment rate increased by 0.1% over the quarter to 75.5%
• The unemployment rate decreased by 0.2% over the quarter to 4.1%
• The economic inactivity rate increased by 0.1% over the quarter to 21.2%
• Redundancies fell by 32,000 over the quarter to 72,000 (285,000 fewer than a year ago)
• Vacancies reached another record high of 1,298,000 during the quarter
  • In the Electricity & Gas industry, the number of vacancies fell by 15% during the quarter (up 34% over the year) to c5,000
  • In the Water supply, sewerage, waste & remediation activities industry, the number of vacancies fell by 6% during the quarter (up 150% over the year) to c8,000
• Total hours worked increased by 0.1% over the quarter to 1.03billion hours (though still down 34million since before the pandemic)
• Earnings growth in average total pay (including bonuses) was 4.3% and regular pay (excluding bonuses) was 3.7%
  • In real terms (adjusted for inflation), total and regular pay fell over the year by -0.1% for total pay and -0.8% for regular pay

The Office for National Statistics’ full update on the state of the labour market in February 2022 can be found here.

The next update will be on 15^th March 2022.

For further information about the labour market, migration or regional labour market indications, please email Rob Murphy, our in-house strategic workforce planning consultant.