UK labour market April 2021 - Release 10

The aim of this report is to extract sector relevant analysis from the ONS UK Labour Market data release. Release 10 uses the August report which was released on the August 17^th 2021.

Summary of findings

The most recent data show the labour market continuing to recover as all measures are at, or nearing pre-pandemic levels. Following a period of employment growth and low unemployment, since the start of the pandemic, the employment rate has generally decreased, and the unemployment rate increased. However, since the end of 2020, both have shown signs of recovery. With the relaxation of many Coronavirus restrictions, total hours worked increased in the quarter, however, it is still below pre-pandemic levels. The redundancy rate decreased in the quarter and has returned to pre-pandemic levels. There were an estimated 953,000 job vacancies in May to July 2021, a record high.

This is also true for the sector. Redundancy levels have slightly increased in the past month by 4% and at most recent reporting (April to June 2021) was at 14,113. Levels are now 40% lower than the same period in 2020 and are now post-pandemic levels. The redundancy rate in the ‘Wholesale and Retail Trade; ‘Repair of Vehicles and Motorcycles’ sector is currently 4.1%,  which is now at pre-pandemic levels and 14.6% lower than the record high in Aug-Oct 2020. It is also 0.5 percentage points higher than the ‘All Industries’ rate. It has the 6^th highest rate of the 13 outlined industries. For May-July 2021, there were an estimated 15,000 vacancies in the Motor Trades sub sector; this has been increasing for the past 5 months. Levels are currently at 2019 levels. The motor trade vacancies ratio is 2.8 which is 0.4 lower than the all vacancy rate.