Unemployment crawling in the right direction

The drop in the UK’s unemployment rate by 0.1 per cent represents a crawl in the right direction rather than a freefall – but at least it is the right direction. And it represents an ongoing downward trend which can only be positive.

Levels of unemployment are still high at 8.1 per cent and they do also need some clarifying. For instance, the number of people out of work for more than a year stands at the highest for 16 years and the number of people working part time hours is the highest since records started in 1992 at 8.12 million. Around 1.42 million of those are working part time hours because they can’t secure a full time post.

However, the overall figures do reflect the resilience of the current labour market, while also suggesting that those companies operating in the private sector are perhaps more confident than many commentators are suggesting.

Certainly we’re finding locally that the recruitment market is improving in specific areas. In particular, local businesses in the engineering sector are on the hunt for new staff in a number of different departments. And smaller IT companies are obviously coping with larger work loads as there has been an increase in demand for those with IT sales and web developer experience. Interestingly, that reflects the national situation in those industries.

Even cautious employers are hanging on to staff, obviously anticipating an upturn so making it financially worthwhile to pay staff through the lean times rather than go to the expense of re-recruiting in the near future.

It does feel that these two elements of the market are shoring up the continuing poor performances in the public sector and industries including construction and hospitality leading to the almost static overall figure.