UK job market sees pre-Christmas uplift with new vacancies in retail and construction
The job market is experiencing a pre-Christmas uplift, as per recent research from Adzuna. In October, there was a 0.64 per cent increase in vacancies compared to six months ago, marking the first positive six-monthly reading for 2024.
This suggests that the job market has stabilised following the significant drop in new job openings during the first half of the year, as reported by City AM.
Approximately 23,000 Christmas jobs are currently available, Adzuna reported, with most opportunities found in retail and hospitality, as well as the trade and construction sector.
“Driven by preparations for the busy Christmas shopping season, sectors like trade & construction and retail are ramping up hiring. We are excited to see where this leads as we head into the new year,” said Andrew Hunter, co-founder of the job search site. Despite the festive surge, the number of vacancies actually decreased in October, albeit by a relatively small margin of just 0.17 per cent.
“Steep drops in vacancies in the first half of 2024 appear to have stalled,” the company stated. According to their data, there are slightly more than two jobseekers for every vacancy, an increase from approximately one-and-a-half a year ago.
These figures emerge amidst ongoing concerns about the UK labour market’s condition. The Office for National Statistics’ (ONS) primary labour force survey is grappling with extremely low response rates, leading to fluctuating unemployment readings and uncertainty regarding the inactivity rate.
The latest official statistics indicate that the unemployment rate rose to 4.3 percent in the three months ending September, a jump from the previous period’s 4.0 percent. Meanwhile, economic inactivity rates seem considerably higher than pre-pandemic levels, which could negatively impact the UK’s workforce potential.
However, last week’s Resolution Foundation report challenged the Office for National Statistics’ (ONS) somewhat bleak portrayal of the job market. Specifically, it questioned the ONS’s assessment of the true level of economic inactivity.
“Official statistics have misrepresented what has happened in the UK labour market since the pandemic,” Adam Corlett, principal economist at the think tank, affirmed. He argued, “The ONS Labour Force Survey appears to have ‘lost’ almost a million workers over the past few years compared to better sources.”