UK jobs market cools as unemployment rises – TradingView News

This morning, the UK’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) released the country’s latest unemployment and employment figures.

The period in question was, no doubt, turbulent for the labor landscape. In March alone, the ONS estimated that 22,000 working days were lost due to industrial unrest across the UK.

Increase in unemployment

From January to March 2024, the unemployment rate was 4.3%, an increase of 0.3 percentage points year-on-year.

This is a slight increase from the 4.2% estimated in the last month’s quarter and a significant increase from the previous quarter’s figure of 3.8%.

It comes hot on the heels of April’s unemployment figures, which showed an estimated 156,000 jobs lost – the highest unemployment rate in six months.

As the job market cools, the employment rate falls

In the same period, the employment rate decreased by 0.8 percentage points to 74.5%.

Overall, the number of people employed fell by 178,000.

The initial estimate of payroll workers for April 2024 fell by 85,000 (0.3%) month over month, but rose by 129,000 (0.4%) over the year to 30.2 million.

Vacancies in the UK are reaching crisis levels

However, while more people are unemployed, the number of jobs offered has also decreased. From February to April 2024, the number of estimated vacancies in the UK fell by 26,000 over the quarter to 898,000.

This is the 22nd month in a row that job openings have fallen – marking almost two years of continued slowdown in the UK jobs market.

However, the ONS was hard-pressed to confirm that these numbers “are still higher than pre-coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic levels”.