employment rate increases to 74.7%

The trend in the employment rate is increasing but the trends in the unemployment and inactivity rates are falling. There has been a further fall in the number of people claiming Jobseeker's Allowance benefit. The number of job vacancies has increased. Growth in average earnings, excluding bonuses, has increased, but earnings growth including bonuses has fallen.

The employment rate for people of working age was 74.7 per cent for the three months to December 2007, up 0.3 from the previous quarter and up 0.2 over the year. The number of people in employment for the three months to December 2007 was 29.40 million. This is the highest figure since comparable records began in 1971 and is up 175,000 over the quarter and up 296,000 over the year. Although employment has increased over the quarter, total hours worked has fallen by 2.3 million to reach 935.6 million; this is due to a fall in average actual hours worked.

The unemployment rate was 5.2 per cent, down 0.2 over the previous quarter and down 0.3 over the year. The number of unemployed people decreased by 61,000 over the quarter and by 86,000 over the year, to reach 1.61 million.

The claimant count was 794,600 in January 2008, down 10,800 over the previous month and down 128,500 over the year. This is the lowest figure since June 1975. The claimant count has now fallen for 16 consecutive months.

The inactivity rate for people of working age was 21.0 per cent for the three months to December 2007, down 0.2 over the previous quarter but unchanged over the year. The number of economically inactive people of working age decreased by 54,000 over the quarter but increased by 51,000 over the year to reach 7.92 million. The number of economically inactive students has reached a record high of 1.94 million while the number of economically inactive people looking after the family or home has reached a record low of 2.26 million.

The annual rate of growth in average earnings (the AEI) excluding bonuses was 3.7 per cent in December 2007, up 0.1 from the previous month. Including bonuses it was 3.8 per cent, down 0.2 from the previous month.

There were 677,400 job vacancies for the three months to January 2008, up 7,300 over the previous quarter and up 72,000 over the year.

The redundancy rate for the three months to December 2007 was 4.4 per 1,000 employees, down 1.0 over the quarter and down 0.8 over the year

Source: Office for National Statistics

Notes:
People in employment, unemployed and economically inactive make up the total household population aged 16 and over, measured through the Labour Force Survey on a consistent basis since 1971.

Working age is defined as 16-64 for men and 16-59 for women.

Published on 13 February 2008 at 9:30 am