London and South-East top jobs growth as employment stable

Today’s new Labour Market Statistics from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows little change in employment over the past quarter, but reveal that London and the South-East have taken the lion’s share of new jobs over the past year.
Wed, 14 Aug 2013Today’s new Labour Market Statistics from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows little change in employment over the past quarter, but reveal that London and the South-East have taken the lion’s share of new jobs over the past year.

The employment rate for the three months to June was 71.5%, equal to 29.78m people in work, a rise of 69,000 on the first three months of 2013 and 301,000 on the same period in 2012. Unemployment dropped slightly, although the unemployment rate of 7.8% is unchanged.

Of those 301,000 extra people in work since Q2 2012, 95,000 found jobs in London  and 81,000 elsewhere in the South-East.

Two regions have seen job drops in the past year, with 11,000 roles shed in the North-West and 8,000 in the East Midlands. However, both areas also saw a drop in the number of people unemployed, with the unemployment rate dropping year-on-year in all regions of the UK aside from the West Midlands, where it rose by 1.2%.

Other regions seeing jobs buoyancy were Yorkshire and the Humber (adding 35,000 jobs), Scotland (31,000) and East of England (22,000).

The number of 16-24-year-olds in employment was 3.58m, down 92,000 since the start of the year.

There were 533,000 job vacancies in the UK in the period May-July, an increase of 18,000 on the previous three-month period, as the number of open roles again sits its highest level in over four years.

Total pay rose by 2.1% year-on-year, although regular pay (excluding bonuses) rose by a more modest 1.1%, although House of Commons documents revealed last week that in real terms, average hourly wages in the UK have dropped by 5.5% since mid-2010, the fourth-largest drop in the EU.

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