Labour market indicators

With just under 33 million people in employment, the latest estimates from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) put the employment rate among people aged 16 and over at 60.9% and the unemployment rate at 4.2% or 1.448 million (compared with 3.6% a year earlier).

That leaves a total of 19.7 million deemed “inactive” although in the 16-64 age range it is just over 8.7 million. With the latest shift in government benefits policy (aimed at getting more disabled people working from home) we can expect to hear a lot more about economic inactivity figures.

These are experimental figures, relying on Pay As You Earn (PAYE) data, as the ONS is currently experiencing “increased uncertainty” around its Labour Force Survey estimates.

Regular ONS figures released last month show that the number of vacancies has dipped firmly below the one million mark (down by 58,000 on the quarter to 957,000).

Against that backdrop, average weekly earnings grew by 8.3% in the year to September or 7.5% excluding bonus payments (Regular Pay) and are finally ahead of a falling inflation rate.

The latest data also show that 229,000 working days were “lost” because of labour disputes (mainly in health and social work and education).