Unemployment amongst young people remains high, particularly the youngest age group (aged 16-17 = 34.7%/ aged 18-24 = 13.7%).
| The employment rate remained similar at 75.1%, 34.303 million people in employment. The economic inactivity rate decreased slightly to 20.8% which is 286,000 lower than 12 months ago. 9.021 million people are economically inactive, lower than last year but 391,000 higher than pre-pandemic levels. Vacancies increased slightly on the quarter to 734,000, and 69,000 lower than 12 months ago. There were 2.5 unemployed people per vacancy in September to November 2025, up from the previous quarter and the previous year. Payrolled employees for December 2025 decreased by 43,000 to 30.2 million and decreased by 184,000 over the year. It is still 1.21 million higher than pre-pandemic levels. Annual growth in regular pay without bonus was 4.5% and with bonus was 4.7%. Adjusted for inflation, annual growth in regular pay was 0.6% and total pay was 0.8%. The claimant count increased on the month to 1.677 million but decreased on the year. This is the measure of those receiving benefit principally due to being unemployed. Redundancies were 4.9 per thousand employees, higher than last quarter and 12 months ago. 15,000 working days were lost because of labour disputes in November 2025, up from 39,000 the previous month. Over half were in the health and social care sector. |
