Below you will find the latest labour market statistics for April, the data in this piece is taken from the ONS report.
These figure cover the months prior to Covid-19 measures of social distancing.
Headlines For December To February 2020
- Employment rate was estimated at a record high of 76.6%, 0.4 percentage points higher than a year earlier and 0.2 percentage points up on the previous quarter.
- Unemployment rate was estimated at 4.0%, largely unchanged compared with a year earlier and 0.1 percentage point higher than the previous quarter.
- There were an estimated 795,000 vacancies in the UK in January to March 2020; this is 52,000 fewer than a year earlier and 6,000 fewer than the previous quarter.
Youth Unemployment 16 – 24 Year Olds
513,000 young people aged 16-24 were unemployed during December – February 2020, a increase of 7,000 from the previous quarter and an increase of 20,000 on the year before
- The Youth Unemployment rate is 11.8%, up slightly from the previous quarter and from 11.3% a year before.
- The UK Youth Employment rate is 55.6%, up slightly from the previous quarter
Our View
We are facing unprecedented and unforeseen changes to the labour force, we know it will be some time before we see to start the impacts of Covid-19 in these figures.
Amongst the many concerning things we are seeing currently these figures were starting to show that youth unemployment was already beginning to creep up again. This, coupled with the things we already know about young people being the worst impacted employment wise in times of economic struggle, leaves us with very real concerns for the future of our young people.
As an organisation working with young people at its heart we have responded quickly to provide a huge range of support and advice for young people, we are ramping up our efforts with our youth ambassadors to ensure they have the support they need too.
As experts in youth employment we have created a range of support for businesses, engaging your young workforce at this time is really important and that engagement to future talent will be ever more important as the current situation passes.
We remain close to policy discussions championing what is needed for those young people missing education, transitioning without support, finding themselves without work or unsure of how and if their apprenticeship can progress. We helped found the Covid-19 Youth Employment Group and will be leading cross sector discussions on best practise and ways forward.
