More employers 'face difficulties filling job vacancies' than last year
The number of unemployed people fell by 58,000 to 1.91 million in the three months to November 2014 from the previous quarter, according to the latest data from Office for National Statistics (ONS).
This equates to an unemployment rate of 5.8 per cent, while year on year joblessness has dropped by 418,000 compared to September to November 2013.
Employment has grown by 37,000 on the previous quarter to 30.8 million, with the number of people in work rising by 512,000 from 2013.
Year on year UK employee pay rose by 1.7 per cent including bonuses and by 1.8 per cent excluding bonuses.
Commenting on the ONS figures, Mark Beatson, CIPD chief economist, said the rate of jobs growth has slowed compared to six months previously when the number of people in work rose by 243,000 from the preceding quarter.
“This is consistent with the unfilled vacancies figures, which reached the 700,000 mark in the three months October to December. Vacancies are at their highest level since this series was first calculated, in 2001, but again the rate of growth is slower than last spring and summer.
“This suggests that a greater proportion of employers are facing difficulties filling vacancies compared with last year,” he added.
He advised employers to look at how they can make better use of the skills and knowledge they already possess as the labour market tightens. He also urged HR to examine whether they are maximising their potential to attract candidates.
“Investing in the future talent pipeline with clear progression paths is key to offsetting recruiting difficulties and will help to ease retention problems that are often ignored in the narrow debate about skills shortages,” Beatson said.
David Kern, chief economist at the British Chambers of Commerce, also raised concerns about the figures. “Although employment is up and unemployment is down, the quarterly changes were the lowest since 2013, supporting the view that the UK economy may be gradually slowing.
“It is also disappointing that youth unemployment, after a long period of steady decline, increased between September and November 2014. While youth unemployment is markedly lower than a year ago we cannot ignore the fact that it remains consistently higher [at 16.9 per cent] than the adult unemployment rate.
“The modest upturn in average earnings growth is a positive development – earnings are also increasing at a faster rate than prices and real living standards are improving.”
But he said that the low wage increases “do not provide any justification for considering an interest rate rise”.
Katja Hall, CBI deputy director-general, said: “It’s good to see that employment has risen again, albeit at a slower rate than over the last few quarters.
“Pay edged up faster than inflation, but overall pay growth remains low. Productivity will need to improve significantly before pay can rise faster.
“There’s also more to do for young people – while unemployment fell overall, the number of 16-24 year-olds out of work and not in education has increased substantially this quarter.”