Labour Market Profile – March 2022

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

• The number of Payrolled employees increased by 0.9% over the past month to 29.7million
• The employment rate increased by 0.1% over the quarter to 75.6%
• The unemployment rate decreased by 0.2% over the quarter to 3.9%
• The economic inactivity rate increased by 0.1% over the quarter to 21.3%
• Redundancies fell by 29,000 over the quarter to 68,000
• Vacancies reached another record high of 1,318,000 during the quarter
  
  • In the Electricity & Gas industry, the number of vacancies fell by 14% during the quarter (though still 16% higher than a year ago) to c5,000
  • In the Water supply, sewerage, waste & remediation activities industry, the number of vacancies fell by 4% during the quarter (though still 149% higher than a year ago) to c8,000
• Total hours worked increased by 4.7% over the quarter to 1.03billion hours (though still 23million hours lower than before the pandemic)
• Earnings growth in average total pay (including bonuses) was 4.8% and regular pay (excluding bonuses) was 3.8%
  
  • In real terms (adjusted for inflation), growth in total pay was 0.1% on the quarter, although regular pay fell by -1.0%

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

The next update will be on 12^th April 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.