The most recent data shows that the labour market continues to tighten, with all the main indicators showing improvements over the past quarter and compared to the previous year.
- The number of payrolled employees increased by 0.3% over the past month to 29.6million (up 3.9% over the year)
- The employment rate increased by 0.2% over the quarter to 75.6% (up 1.0% over the year)
- The unemployment rate decreased by 0.2% over the quarter to 3.8% (down 1.1% over the year)
- The economic inactivity rate decreased by 0.1% over the quarter to 21.3% (down 0.1% over the year)
- Redundancies fell by 13,000 over the quarter to 56,000 (52,000 fewer than a year ago)
- Vacancies increased by 1.6% over the quarter to reach another record high of 1,300,000 (up 69.9% over the year)
- In the Electricity & Gas industries, the number of vacancies increased by 10% during the quarter (down 4% over the year) to around 6,000
- In the Water supply, sewerage, waste & remediation activities industries, the number of vacancies increased by 2% during the quarter (up 53% over the year) to around 9,000
- Total hours worked increased by 12.2 million hours over the quarter to 1.04 billion hours (up 75.3 million hours over the year)
- Earnings growth in average total pay (including bonuses) was up 6.8% and regular pay (excluding bonuses) was up 4.2%
- In real terms (adjusted for inflation), growth in total pay was 0.4% on the quarter, although regular pay fell by 2.2%
The next update will be on 19 July 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.
