Dr John Philpott, Chief Economic Adviser at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) comments as follows on official labour market statistics published earlier today by the Office for National Statistics (ONS):
“The latest unemployment figures show that conditions in the UK labour market remain extremely weak and indicate that talk of the jobless rate having already peaked is premature. Moreover, separate analysis by the ONS showing that 2.8 million UK workers are ‘underemployed’ shows that the headline jobless figures provide only a partial account of the full impact of the recession on the workforce.
“The 3,000 fall in unemployment on the Labour Force Survey measure for the period October-December is miniscule and must be seen in the context of a corresponding fall of 12,000 in the number of people in work and a rise of 72,000 in the number of economically inactive people. The latter rise is due mainly to a jump in the number of students – highlighting the degree to which young people are turning to study to avoid the dole.
“Most disappointing is the 23,000 January increase in the number of people unemployed and claiming jobseeker’s allowance, which comes after a short period in which the claimant count has been falling. January’s rise in the count is explained by a drop in the number of people flowing out of unemployment rather than an increase in fresh benefit claims, which suggests that recruitment activity weakened at the start of the year.
“Today’s employment and unemployment figures confirm that the UK jobs market is still in an extremely fragile state. New official estimates of ‘underemployment’ also show that the pain of the recession is much deeper than the headline numbers indicate. With a weak economic recovery set to result in further job losses in the coming months it is highly likely that the unemployment situation will get worse before it starts to get significantly better.”
