In recent months we have seen significant changes with employment. Despite experiencing ‘the great resignation‘, a topic area that we have covered extensively at HR Solutions, employment levels actually appear to be on the rise.
With the number of people in the UK on payroll rising by 3% compared to the previous year, and the unemployment rate falling 3.8% within the same time period, is there newly revived hope that businesses are beginning to rebuild after the struggles that they faced throughout the COVID-19 pandemic?
Detailed below is the latest employment data published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) which analyses the labour market for the period March to May and published July 2022:
Employment
The employment rate is at 75.9%, whilst its higher than the previous 3-month period, it is still below pre-pandemic rates.
Unemployment
The unemployment rate has decreased to 3.8% and is now lower than before the pandemic.
Vacancies
The number of vacancies between April and June 2022 was 1,294,000. During this period, the rate of growth in vacancies fell to 0.5% which is the 11th consecutive period where the rate of growth has continued to slow down.
For the fourth consecutive period, the ratio of unemployed people per vacancy remained at 1.
Number of payrolled employees
There were 29.6 million people on the payroll in June 2022 which is an increase of 3% compared to those in the same period the previous year.
Redundancy
During the period March to May 2022, the number of people made redundant or who have taken voluntary redundancy is 0.8 per 1,000 employees.
Warnings of high staff turnover levels in the next year
Each year, the CIPD carries out a benchmarking exercise (CIPD Good Work Index) in which they look at the job quality in the UK. This year, the CIPD polled more than 6,000 workers and found that 20% of respondents would likely end employment and quit their job in the next 12 months.
This is an increase from 16% last year. To extrapolate these figures across the UK’s working population, it could mean that over 6.5 million people could be set to leaving their current role in the next year.
For those that had voted they were considering leaving their job, the reasons why were as follows:
- Seeking better pay and benefits (35%)
- Increase their job satisfaction (27%)
- Seeking a better work life balance (24%)
- Wanting a different type of work (23%)
However from research we can see that quitting may not always be for the best. A survey carried out by UKG found that 20% of job changers worldwide have already boomeranged back to a job that they had quit during the pandemic. And for those who hadn’t left, they found that 41% were considering going back to a previous role had it been open.
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