Wednesday 18 January 2017

Precarious workforce bears the brunt of UK jobs slowdown

It's possible that you might read positive things about the latest Jobs Report from the UK's Office for National Statistics, mostly covering the three months September to November 2016, which was published earlier today. If so, here is a cautionary note: 

The UK labour market showed clear signs of a modest slowdown toward the end of 2016 with the precarious workforce of temps, part-time employees and full-time self-employed bearing the brunt as businesses responded to economic uncertainty following the Brexit vote. The total number of people in work fell by 9,000 in the three months to November but this includes much bigger falls in the number of full-time self-employed (down 49,000), part-time employees (down 60,000) and temps (down 35,000). Although part-time self-employment increased (up 31,000) this is likely to be due to more under-employment among the self-employed unable to find enough hours of work. Only a sharp rise of 143,000 in the number of economically inactive people prevents the weaker jobs numbers from showing up as higher unemployment, the number of jobless people actively seeking work in fact falling by 52,000. Don’t be fooled, therefore, by apparently good headline news of falling unemployment and higher nominal wage growth (up to 2.7% excluding bonuses), the jobs market is at present slowing not growing, as those in precarious work know only too well.