So story so far is very weak employment driven by more older people out of work, more young people in education, far more out of work with ill health, and worrying rises too in young people not in education or employment. But unemployment is up too, right? So is this the economy?
Well no, probably not. Cos this shows unemployment by duration and shows that short-term (0-6 months) has not risen at all recently, and although up a bit on 2022 it's still pretty low by historic standards. All of the growth is in long-term unemployment, which is very worrying.
Other data shows redundancies low too. So this isn't an economy shedding jobs or people closer to work struggling to find it. It's being driven by people further from work not looking for work or not getting the help they need to get it. It's the labour market holding us back.
And if you take a longer view, this matters cos for 25 years pre-pandemic we had a labour force that grew and grew, through thick and thin. But since 2020 it's been stagnant - the biggest change reversal since the early 1990s, and a gap of over a million compared with trend.
So although vacancies are well down on their peaks, they also remain well above pre-pandemic levels and there are signs that they are starting to level off. And with a 'missing million' from the labour force, firms are facing shortages in labour and skills while jobs go unfilled.
Quick final word on pay growth - it remains very strong at around 6% (blue line), which is welcome especially as inflation is falling - so 'real' pay is around 2% (yellow). Means real pay is around £10/ week higher than pre-pandemic (altho only £10/ wk higher than 2008 too...)
And this graph shows pay changes on the previous quarter (not previous year). This is fairly positive as it shows that in most recent data pay is rising by about 1% quarter-on-quarter (so 4% annual) and strong in both public and private sectors.
Will stop there, sorry for long thread! Overall very poor figures, and I think further evidence that it's the labour market holding back growth - with not enough people out of work looking to get back in, and not doing enough to help those most disadvantaged who want a job.
In short term, this shows why govt really needs to get a move on with implementing the £billions in extra support announced *last year* in 2023 Budget and Autumn Statement - Universal Support programme, extra investment in talking therapies, childcare, employment support.
But also shows why we need a more radical rethink of how we do employment support. The system we've got was built for the early 2000s not the mid 2020s. It's a diesel car in an electric age. We need employment services that are more open, inclusive, specialist, joined-up...
... so all the thing that we're talking about in our Commission on the Future of Employment Support! employment-studies.co.uk/commission And we'll be talking about proposals for reform in the next few months, so watch this space. More on the jobs data in our briefing later!
@tonywilsonIES Great thread Tony, 2 Q's: 1. Is the LM holding back growth? Or health services? The changes to the LM you outline seem to map onto NHS difficulties. i.e. long waiting lists for serious illness. 2. Is LTU really a policy problem for over 60s who may soon leave the LM anyway?