Jobs in the UK – A NewJobToday report – August 2024
The UK job market this summer presents a very mixed picture. There are structural challenges but also some positive trends.
There are the following overall challenges in the employment market.
Structural Challenges
Unemployment rates increased to 4.4% in February to April 2024, indicating a slight increase in joblessness.
Vacancies declined during March to May 2024. Whilst still above the pre pandemic levels, the marketplace is definitely more challenged.
Over 22% of the UK working age population is economically inactive. This figure the 3 months to April 2024 is similar to previous periods and suggests nearly a quarter of working age UK citizens are not actively seeking employment.
Within sectors, Prism Recruitment recently reported that the strongest increase in employment categories were seen in engineering, accountancy, finance and skilled trades, but with these outweighed by more significant declines in the demand for permanent workers in secretarial/administration, followed by IT, support and executive and professional categories.
More positively, here are some noticeable positive trends in the market.
Positive Trends
Overall employment numbers remain high. Between February and April 2024, the Office for National Statistics reports an overall in employment rate of 74% for people aged 16-64. This is a broadly healthy overall market.
Wage growth was at its highest level since Summer 2021 in the 3 month to May 2024 – offsetting some of the challenges around rising living costs.
There are increasing numbers of jobs being created with these increasing by over 430,000 to over 37 million jobs in the UK – demonstrating the continued demand for workers.
There are positive regional job requirements with cities such as Exeter, Bristol, Cambridge, Oxford, Gloucester, Norwich. Milton Keynes, York and St Albans all offering brilliant prospects for job seekers according to
Fenews.co.uk
Overall
The UK job market is definitely changing. The positive indicators seem to be increasingly offset by negative ones. However, there significant opportunities being created, employment remains high and some sectors and areas reporting positive demand.
New-job-today.co.uk has thousands of live jobs and is part of the
jobboard.com network. For instance, over 14,000 jobs are live on the website within commuting distance of the areas served by Tindle Media. Job seekers can tailor their search requirements and be sent updates by email to be amongst the first to apply.
Recruiters can geo-target their vacancies and using the Tindle Media network the promotion of these can be amplified across a wide geography to reach potential applicants. For more information, contact
newjobtoday@tindlenews.co.uk or directly through the website.