Global firm responds to Labour Market Overview
The Office of National Statistics has released their Labour Market Overview for August 2023 this week.
The UK employment rate was estimated at 75.7% in April to June 2023, 0.1 percentage points lower than January to March 2023. The quarterly decrease in employment was driven by full-time employees and self-employed workers.
The estimate of payrolled employees for July 2023 shows a monthly increase, up 97,000 on the revised June 2023 figure, to 30.2 million. The July 2023 estimate should be treated as a provisional estimate and is likely to be revised when more data are received next month.
There was an increase in the unemployment rate for April to June 2023 by 0.3 percentage points on the quarter to 4.2%. The increase in unemployment was driven by people unemployed for up to 6 months.
There were 160,000 working days lost because of labour disputes in June 2023. Over half of the days lost because of labour disputes in June 2023 were in the Health and Social Work sector.
For further insights into these statistics: https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/datasets/summaryoflabourmarketstatistics
Several team members from Deloitte have commented on these latest figures.
Chief Economist at Deloitte, Ian Stewart said: “The jobs market is past its peak, but it is continuing to run hot. UK wages are growing faster than in the US and euro areas and at a rate which is not remotely consistent with inflation.
This week’s data mean that the Bank of England is very likely to raise interest rates again next month. Strong wage growth makes the task of controlling inflation, without generating a hard landing, much more difficult.”
Senior economist at Deloitte, Debapratim De (pictured above) said: “While the fall in headline inflation is a welcome development, core inflation figures indicate that underlying price pressure remains unchanged.
That, along with accelerating services prices and yesterday’s strong wage data, suggests that the Bank of England’s objective of restoring price stability is still far from being achieved.”
Deloitte LLP, a subsidiary of Deloitte NSE LLP which is a member firm of DTTL, and is among the UK’s leading professional services firms.
