Slowdown In Labour Market Decline

The ONS Labour Market Survey for December reports there have been falls in the number of jobs, lower employment, increases in redundancies and rising unemployment ever since the start of the recession but in the third quarter of 2009 the labour market decline has slowed.

The number claiming Jobseekers Allowance in November was 1.63 million, a decrease of 6,300, the first monthly fall since February 2008. The number of vacancies in the three months to November was 432,000.

The employment rate for August to October was 72.5% at 28.93 million, up 53,000 and there was the smallest quarterly increase in unemployment rates, at 7.9%, since Spring 2008. The number of unemployed was 2.49 million. The number of redundancies fell 42,000 to 191,000 people, a rate of 7.7 per 1000 employees. The inactivity rate was 21% and there were 7.99 million economically inactive people of working age. The Average Earnings Index (AEI), including bonuses, went up by 1.5% on last year. The AEI excluding bonuses went up 1.7% on the year. Nine stoppages lost a total of 175,000 working days. Over the year to October, 90 stoppages lost 374,000 working days.

There were 30.86 million workforce jobs in September which is down 127,000 over the quarter and 649,000 on the year. Construction saw the largest decreases. The manufacturing industries had 2.61 million employee jobs in the three months to October. There were 26.36 million employee jobs and 4.2 million self-employment jobs.

Productivity for the whole economy for the second quarter of 2009 was down by 3.9% on the previous year. Unit wage costs for the whole economy were 5.7% higher for the same period. Manufacturing productivity was down by 0.9% and unit wage costs up by 3% for three months to October.