| The latest figures shows that: Unemployment rate rose to 4.8% with 1.74 million people unemployed. Unemployment amongst young people remains high, particularly amongst the youngest age group (aged 16-17 = 33.5%/ aged 18-24 = 12%). The employment rate fell slightly to 75.1%, 34.22 million people in employment. The economic inactivity rate remains largely unchanged at 21% but is 287,000 lower than 12 months ago. 9.12 million people are economically inactive, lower than last year but 485,000 higher than pre-pandemic levels. Job vacancies fell to 717,000, the 39th consecutive quarterly decline and 78,000 below pre-Covid levels. This means there were 2.4 unemployed people per vacancy in June 2025 to August 2025, up from the previous quarter. The number of payrolled employees for September 2025 fell by 10,000 to 30.3 million, down 100,000 over the year though still 1.28 million higher than pre-pandemic levels. Annual growth in regular pay without bonus was 4.7% and with bonus was 5%. Adjusted for inflation, annual growth in regular pay was 0.6% and total pay 0.8%. The claimant count increased on the month to 1.69 million but decreased on the year. This signifies people receiving unemployment related benefits. Redundancies stood at 3.8 per thousand employees, similar to last quarter and slightly higher than 12 months ago. 15,000 working days were lost because of labour disputes in August 2025, down sharply from 83,000 in July |
