After several months of positive employment figures, today’s are decidedly negative. Unemployment, which was expected to fall by around 10,000, has actually risen by 38,000 to 2.49m (7.9 per cent). But that’s not the only grim statistic in today’s data release, below are five other worrying trends.
1. Vacancies down.
The number of vacancies is down 22,000 over the quarter and down 28,000 over the year to 449,000, the lowest number since the three months to November 2009.
2. Youth unemployment up
Youth unemployment has risen by 15,000 to 949,000 (20.2 per cent) over the last quarter. There is a risk that it will rise further as thousands of A-level students enter the labour market for the first time.
The unemployment rate for 16-24 year olds not in full-time education has risen to 18.8 per cent, up 0.5 per cent from the three months to March.
3. Involuntary part-time workers up
The number of people working part-time because they can’t find a full-time job has risen to a record high of 1.26m (see graph), up 7 per cent on the quarter and 17 per cent on the year. 16 per cent of Britain’s 7.9m part-time workers fall into this category.
4. Involuntary temporary workers up
The number of temporary workers who could not find a permanent job (as opposed to those who did not want one) has risen to 601,000, up 29,000 (5.1 per cent) over the last three months and up 33,000 (5.8 per cent) over the last year. 37 per cent of the UK’s 1.6m temporary workers fall into this category.
5. Women hit hardest
Female unemployment rose by 21,000 over the quarter (male unemployment rose by 18,000) to reach 1.05m, the highest figure since 1988. With women making up 65 per cent of the public sector workforce, it’s unsurprising that they’ve been hit hardest by the coalition’s cuts.
Women also bore the brunt of redundancies with 69,000 made redundant over the last three months, up 25,000 (56.5 per cent) on the quarter and 20,000 (41.5 per cent) on the year.
The coalition can still point to the fact that there are now 29.27m people in employment, 251,000 (0.9 per cent) more than year ago, and that the rise in private sector employment has (so far) compensated for the fall in public sector employment. There are 520,000 more private sector workers than a year ago, compared with 143,000 fewer public sector workers. But with the biggest cuts yet to come and growth significantly lower than expected, things could be about to get very grim indeed.
Content from our partners
Related
