Statistics catch up with grim reality

The tide of redundancy announcements is now showing through clearly in official labour market statistics.

The unemployment rate is rising sharply and is now running at 4.8%, while redundancies reached a record high — 314,000 in the three months to September 2020 (up 181,000 on the quarter).

There were 33,000 fewer people in payrolled employment in October, compared with a month earlier. Since March, the number on payroll has fallen by 782,000, although the Office for National Statistics (ONS) says larger falls were seen at the start of the pandemic.

Total hours worked, while still low, did show some signs of recovery, with the number of people temporarily away from work down from its peak in April and May 2020.

A slender ray of hope is that vacancies continued to recover, rising to 525,000: 278,000 fewer than a year ago but 146,000 more than the previous quarter.

Annual growth in employee pay continued to strengthen as more returned to work from furlough. However, it is still “subdued” the ONS said.

The whole-economy rate (“total pay” including bonus) rose by 2.2% (1.3% averaged over the three months July to September 2020). Earnings growth excluding bonuses was a little stronger.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peoplenotinwork/redundancies