Britain boasts one of best job rates in world
BRITAIN has one of the world’s highest employment rates as new figures reveal record numbers in work.
Some 32.7 million people have a job – almost half a million more than this time last year. It means the employment rate has soared to 76.1 per cent, the seventh best in the world and higher than all EU nations bar Sweden and the Netherlands.
And this year Britain could be among the top three, behind Iceland and Switzerland.
Some 222,000 people found work in the last quarter, the Office for National Statistics said. The ONS also said the UK’s jobless rate has fallen below four per cent for the first time since 1975.
Encouraging
Unemployment fell 35,000 to 1.34 million, 112,000 lower than a year ago, giving a jobless rate of 3.9 per cent, well below the EU average of 6.5 per cent. Furthermore, average earnings increased by 3.4 per cent in the year to January.
Business leaders welcomed the figures. Stephen Clarke, of the Resolution Foundation, said: “While business investment has stagnated, firms are choosing instead to invest heavily in new staff.
“This encouraging jobs growth is benefiting women and those traditionally left out of the labour market. It is even starting to have a knock-on effect on still historically weak pay rises.”
Recruitment & Employment Confederation boss Neil Carberry said the data showed the “strength of the UK labour market, with recruiters helping firms hire the right staff for them to prosper amidst pressing skills shortages. But they need a Brexit deal that helps maintain and enhance this strong performance, rather than gambling with it”.
Employment minister Alok Sharma said: “Three-quarters of new jobs since 2010 are in full-time, permanent work – ending the myth that insecure work is widespread.”
He said most of these were better-paid, high-skilled roles “and as we have seen today, wages are growing – outpacing inflation every month over the last year”.