{"id":7671,"date":"2019-02-19T11:04:20","date_gmt":"2019-02-19T11:04:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/uk-employment-hits-another-record-high\/"},"modified":"2019-02-19T11:04:20","modified_gmt":"2019-02-19T11:04:20","slug":"uk-employment-hits-another-record-high","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/uk-employment-hits-another-record-high\/","title":{"rendered":"UK employment hits another record high"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\"CommutersImage copyright<\/span>
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The number of people in work in the UK has continued to climb, with a record 32.6 million employed between October and December, the latest Office of National Statistics figures show. <\/a><\/p>\n

Unemployment was little-changed in the three-month period at 1.36 million.<\/p>\n

The jobless rate, remaining at 4%, is at its lowest since early 1975.<\/p>\n

Weekly average earnings went up by 3.4% to \u00a3494.50 in the year to December – after adjusting for inflation, that is the highest level since March 2011.<\/p>\n

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The number of people in work between October and December was up 167,000 from the previous quarter and 444,000 higher than at the same time in 2017.<\/p>\n

The employment rate – defined as the proportion of people aged from 16 to 64 who are working – was estimated at 75.8%, higher than the 75.2% from a year earlier and the joint-highest figure since comparable estimates began in 1971.<\/p>\n

ONS deputy head of labour market Matt Hughes said: “The labour market remains robust, with the employment rate remaining at a record high and vacancies reaching a new record level.<\/p>\n

“The unemployment rate has also fallen, and for women has dropped below 4% for the first time ever.”<\/p>\n

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However, Andrew Wishart, UK economist at Capital Economics, warned that next month’s figures may not be so buoyant.<\/p>\n

“The labour market data didn’t reflect the slip in hiring surveys in December, with employment rising,” he said.<\/p>\n

“However, the surveys deteriorated more markedly in January, so a Brexit effect might start to weaken employment growth in the next batch of official data.” <\/p>\n

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Analysis:<\/h2>\n

By Dharshini David, BBC economics correspondent<\/strong><\/p>\n

The jobs market remains in a robust shape despite the loss of momentum in the economy towards the end of last year – although the Brexit fog effect may be yet to register. <\/p>\n

Continuing recent trends, the majority of those entering work were previously inactive (students, looking after home, long-term sick etc).<\/p>\n

The demand for labour continues to bolster wage growth. Real wages increased by more than 1% per year, better on the whole than in recent years although about half the rate of the pre-crisis era.<\/p>\n

So little sign of Brexit uncertainty hitting hiring so far – but demand in the labour market tends to lag significantly behind changes in output. <\/p>\n

More recent employment surveys show a marked deterioration in January, so a Brexit effect might start to weaken employment growth in the next batch of official data.<\/p>\n

And productivity – output per hour – was down by 0.2% in the fourth quarter of 2018 versus a year previously, as output rose more slowly than employment. The lack of progress in this area could weigh on wage growth in the longer term.<\/p>\n

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Skill shortages<\/h2>\n

Looking at the average earnings figures, Samuel Tombs, chief UK economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said: “With surplus labour extremely scarce and job vacancies rising to a new record high, workers are having more success in obtaining above-inflation pay increases.<\/p>\n

“Looking ahead, we doubt that wage growth will slip below 3% this year.”<\/p>\n

Despite the wage increases and low unemployment figures, Suren Thiru, head of economics at the British Chambers of Commerce, did not think that struggling High Streets would benefit.<\/p>\n

He said: “The uplift to consumer spending from the recent improvement in real pay growth is likely to be limited by weak consumer confidence and high household debt levels.<\/p>\n

“The increase in the number of vacancies to a new record high confirms that labour and skills shortages are set to remain a significant a drag on business activity for some time to come, impeding UK growth and productivity.” <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n


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Source<\/a> by [author_name]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Image copyright Getty Images The number of people in work in the UK has continued to climb, with a record 32.6 million employed between October and December, the latest Office of National Statistics figures show. Unemployment was little-changed in the three-month period at 1.36 million. The jobless rate, remaining at 4%, is at its lowest … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":7672,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7671\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}