Under-employment lingers

The number of people who are under-employed will not return to pre-recession levels for more than eight years if current trends continue, according to the TUC.

A new TUC analysis looks at all types of under-employment, including how many workers across the economy want more hours in their existing jobs, as well as the regularly-published measure of the number of workers in part-time jobs who want to work full-time. There were 2.3 million people under-employed in late 2007. But under-employment increased rapidly following the recession to reach 3.2 million in late 2010. Between 2010 and late 2013 it increased even further to nearly 3.4 million.

Since late 2013, under-employment has been slowly falling, and by late 2014 it had reduced by 110,000 people to just over 3.2 million.

However, the analysis has found that if under-employment continues to fall at the same rate as between 2013 and 2014, it will not return to the pre-crisis level of 2.3 million people until early 2023.

The TUC says that even a return to the pre-recession level is not good enough and the UK needs a much lower rate of under-employment. Otherwise, levels of in-work poverty will remain high and the economy will fail to achieve its full potential.

TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said that millions “cannot get the full hours of work they want”.

www.tuc.org.uk/economic-issues/labour-market/britain-needs-pay-rise/under-employment-won%E2%80%99t-return-pre-crisis-levels