Job ads up 12% on year, unemployment falls again, finds ONS

The number of job vacancies in the UK rose again in the period April to June, to 529,000, with the number of unemployed people searching for each job the lowest it has been for over four years, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
Wed, 17 Jul 2013The number of job vacancies in the UK rose again in the period April to June, to 529,000, with the number of unemployed people searching for each job the lowest it has been for over four years, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

And the number of people out of work fell for the fourth consecutive data release in today’s ONS Labour Market Update.

The number of vacancies rose 4.7% from the previous three-month period, March to May. This is the fifth monthly rise in a row and has risen in all but three months since July 2011. This time last year the figure was 11.9% lower.

The number of people unemployed in the latest available period, March to May (ONS unemployment data runs one month behind vacancies), was 2.51m, down 60,000 on the February to April period.

This equates to an average of 4.8 unemployed persons per vacancy, a number that has steadily dropped since the 5.8 figure seen in late 2011. The last time this figure was this low was December 2008 to February 2009, when it stood at 4.5.

In early 2008 it stood at 2.3, and was 2.2 for much of 2002.

Industries seeing major rises in vacancies in April to June compared with Q1 2013 included accommodation & food service activities, up 16.9% to 53,000 the construction sector, (up 15.2% to 14,000), and the catchily-named ‘wholesale & retail trade, repair of motor vehicles and motor cycle’, where vacancies rose 9.7% to 109,000.

That latter category, which had also been one of the major job growth categories last month, makes up a fifth of all vacancies.

Total employment in the period March to May rose by 16,000 to 29.71m, although the unemployment rate actually dropped by 0.1 percentage points to 71.4%.

ONS data shows total pay in the period rise by 1.7%, with regular pay (excluding bonuses) up by 1%.

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