The unemployment total fell at it’s fastest pace in nearly a year in the three months to the end of March 2012, despite the country officially being in recession. According to The Office for National Statistics the jobless total fell 45,000 between January and March to 2.63 Million.
It has been suggested that the figures have been partly driven lower by an increase in the number of people taking on part-time roles when they would actually prefer to be in a full time positions. Out of the 8m part-time workers in the UK, 1.42m would prefer to be in a full time position, this being a record number.
Briton’s unemployment rate of 8.2% is still favourable to that if the EU average of 10.9% but slightly higher than the USA’s rate of 8.1%.
Here at Downtown Recruitment we are finding the market fairly resilient on both the temporary and permanent side of the business. Unemployment in the Aylesbury area is approx 2.3% and as low as 1.1% in Henley area so this is very different from the national average.
Earnings growth (excluding bonuses) in the last year has averaged 1.6%, which is barely half the current rate of 3.5% for consumer inflation pushing down real earnings but perhaps supporting the employment levels.
