Latest data released by ONS - 15 June 2021
- Prior -15.1k
- Claimant count rate 6.2%
- Prior 7.2%
- April ILO unemployment rate 4.7% vs 4.7% expected
- Prior 4.8%
- April employment change 113k vs 135k 3m/3m expected
- Prior 84k
- April average weekly earnings +5.6% vs +4.9% 3m/y expected
- Prior +4.0%
- April average weekly earnings (ex bonus) +5.6% vs +5.3% 3m/y expected
- Prior +4.6%
Slight delay in the release by the source. ONS notes that the number of payrolled employees has increased for a sixth straight month, up another 197,000 in May to 28.5 million in total. However, that is still 553,000 below pre-pandemic levels.
Looking at the details, total hours worked shows an increase as looser restrictions come into play but are still below pre-pandemic levels though the redundancy rate has dropped to match back to before the virus crisis struck. On wages, ONS notes that:
Annual growth in average employee pay has continued to increase, however this is driven by compositional effects of a fall in the number and proportion of lower-paid employee jobs and because the latest month is now compared with April 2020 when earnings were first affected by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic (the base effect).
Overall, this is a positive report but it still shows that there is some ways before the UK labour market gets back to where it was before the pandemic. But progress is progress.
