Employment Continues In General Direction Of Last Two Years

The number of people in employment continues to increase according to the latest Labour Market Survey from the ONS.

There were 30.43m people in employment according to estimates for January to March 2014, 283,000 more than October to December 2013 and 722,000 more than a year ago. An increase in the number of self-employed people partly accounts for the increase.

The increase in numbers of people employed approximates to 72.7% of people aged 16 to 64 in January to March from 72.1% for October to December 2013 and 71.4% from a year earlier.

The unemployment rate was 6.8% or 2.21m unemployed people down 133,000 from October to December 2013 and 309,000 from a year earlier.

Average weekly earnings in March 2014 were £449/week for average regular pay and £474/week for average total pay. Total pay has increased by 1.7% over the year to January to March 2014. Regular pay has increased by 1.3% over the same period. CPI increased by 1.6% between March 2013 and March 2014.

There were 628,000 job vacancies for February to April 2014 up from 116,000 a year earlier.

Unemployment Continues To Fall

The number of people in employment continues to increase according to latest estimates from the ONS. Unemployment continues to fall.

Employment increased by 105,000 from August to October 2013 and increased by 459,000 over the year to 30.19m for November 2013 to January 2014. The August to October increase was due to an increase in self-employed people; the number of employed people actually fell over the same period. The employment rate for November to January was 72.3% up from 72% in August to October and 71.5% from the previous year. The employment rate was highest in the South East at 76.4% and lowest in the North East at 68.2%

Unemployment fell by 63,000 from August to October and by 191,000 over the year. The total number of the unemployed was 2.33m for November to January 2014. The unemployment rate was 7.2% for November to January from 7.4% in August to October 2013 and 7.8% from last year. The unemployment rate was highest in the North East at 9.5% and lowest in the South East at 5.2%.

The number of employees fell by 60,000 to 25.49m. The number of self-employed people increased by 211,000 to 4.46m. Unpaid family workers decreased in number by 7,000 to 108,000. The number of people on government supported training and employment programmes classified as employed decreased by 38,000 to 132,000.

There were 32.35m workforce jobs ie. jobs filled in the economy, in September 2013 an increase of 216,000 from June and 598,000 on the year. The largest increase in jobs was in professional, scientific and technical activities up 137,000 to 2.62m.

In January 2014, regular pay was 1.3% up over the year from November to January to £451/week and total pay was up 1.4% to £479/week.

Unemployment Down By 0.2% On Year

Unemployment was down 0.1% from March to May 2013 with 2.49m people unemployed and 0.2% from a year earlier. Inactivity was at 22.2% down 0.2% from March to May and 0.3% from last year to 8.95m people.

The number of employees increased by 102,000 to 25.38m, the number of self-employed increased by 34,000 to 4.21m, the number of unpaid family workers increased to 116,000, the number of people on government schemes but classified as being in employment increased by 8,000 to 168,000.

Total pay rose by 0.7% to £474/week. Regular pay rose by 0.8% to £447/week.