Employment rate increases

The UK employment rate for August-October 2022 increased by 0.2 points to 75.6% but is still below pre-Covid pandemic levels.

While the number of employees has increased (there are a record 29.9 million on employers’ payrolls) the number of self-employed workers has decreased. The unemployment rate increased by 0.1 points on the quarter to 3.7%.

The economic inactivity rate increased slightly to 21.5%, with half a million more recorded as economically inactive because of long-term sickness. Between June and August 2022, around 2.5 million people reported long-term sickness as the main reason for economic inactivity, up from around 2 million in 2019.

The private/public sector divide in earnings growth persisted in the year to October, although there was slight improvement in the public sector.

Average Weekly Earnings (total pay, including bonuses) rose by 6.7% in the private sector and 3.9% in the public sector.

Excluding bonuses (regular pay) the gap was private sector 7.0%, public sector 3.8%.

This is a more pronounced gap than among settlements monitored by LRD Payline — where the overall median pay increase on lowest basic pay rates over the three months to November remained at 7.2%.