The Office for National Statistics (ONS) this week launched the latest labour market statistics and our TAME team has taken a look at what the data highlights for the North.
This month’s latest labour market release from the ONS shows the North’s labour market continues to bounce back quicker than in the rest of the UK, with over 141,000 more employees in the North now than in March 2020. The North’s growth accounts for over 35% of total UK growth in employees since before the pandemic.
As the above chart shows, the North returned to pre-pandemic levels of employment one month before the UK as a whole, and two months before the rest of the UK.
This data comes from the ONS’ earnings and employment data from Pay as you Earn real time information, an experimental statistic published on a monthly basis. This data should be treated with caution, as an increase in employees could indicate a reduction in self-employed individuals, but nevertheless there is some optimism that can be taken from a sustained rise in the number of employees in the North.
Elsewhere, the Claimant Count offers further optimism, falling to 6.1% in the North, the lowest level since before the pandemic began, and 5.3% across the UK. The claimant count captures the number of people claiming benefits, principally for the reason of being unemployed, and is also an experimental statistic.
The four headline statistics produced by the ONS (employment rate, unemployment rate, economic activity rate and economic inactivity rate) have all remained largely the same over the past three months.
The key finding there is the North’s unemployment rate, which captures individuals within the economy who are unemployed but are actively seeking employment, has remained low at 4.5%, and in-line with the UK’s unemployment rate of 4.3%.
In the three months to October 2021, Yorkshire and the Humber out-performed the UK in terms of unemployment, with a rate of 4.1% – the lowest rate in the region in over two years.
