Mr.Talha Posted October 12, 2021 Posted October 12, 2021 Politics Vacancies hit 1.1 million between July and September, the Office for National Statistics said, the highest level since records began in 2001. The largest increase in vacancies was in the retail sector and in motor vehicle repair, it said. The UK unemployment rate was estimated at 4.5%, compared with a rate of 4% before the pandemic. The ONS said the number of employees on payrolls showed another monthly increase, rising 207,000 to a record 29.2 million in September. "The jobs market has continued to recover from the effects of the coronavirus, with the number of employees on payroll in September now well exceeding pre-pandemic levels," said Darren Morgan, director of economic statistics at the ONS. "Vacancies also reached a new one-month record in September, at nearly 1.2 million, with our latest estimates suggesting that all industries have at least as many jobs on offer now as before the onset of Covid-19." Recovery concerns Chancellor Rishi Sunak said it was "encouraging" to see the government's jobs strategy working. "The number of expected redundancies remained very low in September, there are more employees on payrolls than ever before and the unemployment rate has fallen for eight months in a row." However, Yael Selfin, chief economist at KPMG UK, said labour market shortages "could stunt" the UK's economic recovery from the pandemic. "The recovery is testing the capacity of the economy to adjust to a new post-pandemic environment, a task made more difficult by the reduced availability of overseas workers," she said. "Acute skill shortages have pushed vacancies to record levels for a second month in a row in September, as employers struggled to find skilled staff." Little room for Budget spending, says think tank Businesses welcome back workers as furlough ends Sectors that had large increases in vacancies included accommodation and food services, professional activities and manufacturing. The record number of job vacancies coupled with a rise in wage growth in August "increases the chances of the Bank of England raising interest rates in the coming months despite other evidence that the economic recovery is spluttering" said Paul Dales, chief UK economist at Capital Economics. "Crucially, evidence from other surveys suggests that vacancies are high partly because employers are finding it increasingly hard to find workers," he said. "So there's no real signs in this release that the labour shortages have started to ease." He added that the end of the furlough scheme "will probably help, but we're increasingly of the view that labour shortages will last at least until the middle of next year".
Recommended Posts