The most recent data shows that the labour market’s post-COVID recovery continues to slow, with a number of the main indicators turning negative over the past quarter.
- The number of payrolled employees increased by 0.2% over the past month to 29.7 million (up 2.5% over the year)
- The employment rate fell by 0.3% over the quarter to 75.5% (up 0.3% over the year)
- The unemployment rate fell by 0.3% over the quarter to 3.5% (down 0.9% over the year)
- The economic inactivity rate increased by 0.6% over the quarter at 21.7% (up 0.5% over the year)
- There were 68,000 redundancies during the quarter – 16,000 more than the previous quarter, but 31,000 fewer than a year ago
- The number of vacancies fell by 3.6% over the quarter to 1,246,000 (up 10.3% over the year)
- In the Electricity & Gas industries, the number of vacancies fell by 5.2% during the quarter (down 6.8% over the year) to around 6,000
- In the Water supply, sewerage, waste & remediation activities industries, the number of vacancies fell by 15.4% during the quarter (up 6.9% over the year) to around 8,000
- Total hours worked fell by 0.4 million hours over the quarter to 1.046 billion hours (up 21.9 million hours over the year)
- Earnings growth in average total pay (including bonuses) was up 6% and regular pay (excluding bonuses) was up 5.4%
- In real terms (adjusted for inflation), growth in total pay was -2.4% on the year, with regular pay falling by -2.9% (this is slightly smaller than the record fall in real regular pay we saw in June 2022 (-3.0%), but still remains among the largest falls in growth since comparable records began in 2001)
The Office for National Statistics’ full update on the state of the labour market in October 2022 can be found here. The next update will be on 15 November 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.
