There isn't much good news in the ONS Labour Market Survey for September. The number of unemployed, the unemployment rate and the claimant count have all increased. The number of inactive people of working age and the inactivity rate have increased and growth in average earnings has decreased in the three months to July, the period the survey covered. The employment rate has fallen to 72.5% and the total employment level was 28.89 million.
There was another fall in the number of people working in manufacturing at 2.65 million, down 221,000. Total hours worked per week was 908.7 million. Average weekly hours in the quarter to July was 31.5 down 0.1 from April.
The unemployment rate was 7.9% or 2.47 million in the quarter to July 2009, up 743,000 on last year. There were 567,000 people unemployed for over 12 months and 731,000 18-24 year olds. There were 22,000 people 25 years and over claiming for over 2 years. The claimant count was 1.61 million up 693,700 on last year. The economic inactivity rate was 21.1% or 7.99 million in the quarter. That is an increase of 97,000 over the quarter and 125,000 over the year.
Average earnings however increased 2.2% on last year, down 0.2% from June. Pay including bonuses was up 1.7% on the year. Unit wage costs were up 3.6% in the first quarter of the year. In the quarter to July 2009 manufacturing unit wage costs increased by 4.3% and productivity decreased by 3.4%.
There were a total of 434,000 job vacancies in the three months to August, down 12,000, which meant there were 1.7 vacancies for every 100 employee jobs. There were also 246,000 redundancies over the quarter at a rate of 9.8 for every 1000 employees. In July 2009 there were 24,000 working days losts due to labour disputes from 10 stoppages.
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