Jobs have been few and far between over the last couple of years in the UK, due to the recession, but there has been somewhat of a mini revival.
In fact, the Office for National Statistics have said that the amount of people out of work has dropped by 125,000, with the unemployment rate showing signs of slowly but broadly declining.
The jobless rate now stands at just 7.2%, down from 7.6% just a few months ago. The pace of wages has risen though from 0.9% to 1%, with the number of people claiming for Jobseeker’s Allowance has also dropped around 22,600 – so good news all round.
Although, as the amount of people becoming employed improves the competitiveness for the desirable jobs becomes even harder. The unemployment rate is actually likely to drop below 7% over the coming months too, which is promising signs for the UK employment issue.
John Philpott, The Jobs Economist Consultancy, has said that, “The falling unemployment and the rise in job vacancies is now aiding all of the categories of job seekers, which includes the young people and the long-term unemployed to find a job.”
Tom Vaughton, Varn Media, said, “Some companies, like ourselves, invest in people for the long term so we like to find the perfect employee. Having said that we are continually creating jobs to grow the business and it is businesses like ourselves that help improve the unemployment statistics we have seen lately.”
Philip Shaw, Investec, also said, “It is interesting to see that the joblessness of the UK has dropped by 125,000 during the previous three months and the job creation remains positive showing an employment rise of 193,000. In fact, the total number of full-time workers is up by 209,000 and the total number of part-time employees is down by 16,000.”
So, the signs are promising for the UK unemployment headache, but the next few months will be where we see the progress start to kick in. If unemployment rates continue to decline over the coming months, we could be seeing a much healthier economy.