Slight fall in joblessness rate

Lockdown is being wound down and vaccinations are climbing, but the economy and labour market are still in difficulty.

The number of people on payroll fell slightly in March, after a few months of growth.

The total is down by 813,000 since before the pandemic, while five million were employed but still on furlough.

There was a welcome pick-up in job vacancies in March and possibly in April, especially in hospitality which has seen the largest falls in pay-rolled employment.

However the vacancy level was still down 22.7% on the year, at 607,000.

There was a small quarterly decrease in the unemployment rate (4.9%) but the “economic inactivity rate” increased to 20.9% (up by 0.7 percentage points compared with a year earlier). So the overall employment rate continued to fall (to 75.1%).

Economic inactivity refers to people aged 16-64 years without a job but who are not classed as unemployed. The increase coincided with the introduction of further national lockdown measures.

Being economically inactive doesn’t mean people don’t want a job, but they may be on temporary or long-term sickness absence, studying (more young people are staying in education), looking after the home and family or retired.

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