Employment in the UK: October 2022

Estimates of employment, unemployment and economic inactivity for the UK.

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Contact:
Email Bob Watson

Release date:
11 October 2022

Next release:
15 November 2022

2. Main points

  • When comparing estimates for June to August 2022 against the previous three-month period (March to May 2022), be aware that survey estimates for March to May 2022 had a notably higher employment rate and lower economic inactivity rate than other recent periods.

  • June to August 2022 estimates show a decrease in the unemployment rate compared with the previous three-month period (March to May 2022), and a decrease in the employment rate, while the economic inactivity rate increased.

  • Total hours worked decreased compared with the previous three-month period and are still below pre-coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic levels.

  • The UK employment rate was estimated at 75.5%, which is 0.3 percentage points lower than the previous three-month period and 1.0 percentage points lower than before the pandemic (December 2019 to February 2020).

  • The UK unemployment rate was estimated at 3.5%, which is 0.3 percentage points lower than the previous three-month period and 0.5 percentage points below pre-pandemic levels.

  • The UK economic inactivity rate was estimated at 21.7%, which is 0.6 percentage points higher than the previous three-month period and 1.4 percentage points higher than before the pandemic.

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3. Coronavirus (COVID-19) and measuring the labour market

Latest Labour Force Survey (LFS) estimates are based on interviews that took place from June to August 2022. Many of the government lockdown restrictions had eased prior to this period.

Because of coronavirus and the suspension of face-to-face interviewing, we had to make operational changes to the LFS, which moved to a by-telephone approach. This introduced an increased non-response bias to the survey, which was partially mitigated by the introduction of housing tenure-based weights into the survey in October 2020, as detailed in Coronavirus and its impact on the Labour Force Survey.

However, it was acknowledged that further improvement work was required to deal with the increase in non-response from those with a non-UK country of birth or nationality. As a result, a new weighting methodology was introduced in July 2021. Further information is available in Impact of reweighting on Labour Force Survey key indicators, UK: 2022.

More about economy, business and jobs

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4. Summary

Figure 1: June to August 2022 estimates show a decrease in both employment and unemployment rates, while the economic inactivity rate increased

UK employment, unemployment, and economic inactivity rates, seasonally adjusted, between June to August 2007 and June to August 2022

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During the first year of the coronavirus pandemic, there was a decrease in the employment rate and increases in the economic inactivity and unemployment rates for both men and women. However, the unemployment rates for both men and women have now returned to levels similar to those seen before the coronavirus pandemic (Figure 2).

The decrease in the employment rate in the latest three-month period (June to August 2022) was driven by both men and women, and the increase in the economic inactivity rate was largely driven by men.

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5. Employment

Following an increase in the employment rate since early 2012, the rate decreased from the start of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. There has been an increase since the end of 2020; however, the employment rate decreased in June to August 2022 compared with the previous three-month period. The previous three-month period (March to May 2022) had a higher employment rate than other recent periods, while the current three-month period (June to August 2022) is more in line with other recent periods.

The number of full-time employees decreased during the latest three-month period but is still above pre-pandemic levels. Part-time employees had generally been increasing since the beginning of 2021, showing recovery from the large falls in the early stages of the pandemic; there was, however, a decrease during the latest three-month period. The number of self-employed workers fell in the first year of the coronavirus pandemic and has remained low, although the number has increased during the latest three-month period for both the full-time and part-time self-employed (Figure 3). Previous evidence has shown that people aged 65 years and over have driven recent increases in self-employment.

Meanwhile, the number of people with second jobs increased slightly during the latest three-month period, up 43,000 to 1,239 million.

Hours worked

Total actual weekly hours worked in the UK have been generally increasing since the relaxation of coronavirus lockdown measures. However, compared with the previous three-month period, total actual weekly hours worked decreased by 0.4 million hours to 1.05 billion hours in June to August 2022 (Figure 4). This is still 6.3 million hours below pre-coronavirus pandemic levels (December 2019 to February 2020). The decrease in the latest three-month period was driven by women, although the level for women remains above pre-pandemic levels. Meanwhile, total actual weekly hours worked by men increased in June to August 2022.

After falling sharply in the early stages of the pandemic, the average actual weekly hours worked have now returned to levels similar to those seen before the coronavirus pandemic. The shortfall in total actual weekly hours is therefore the result of fewer people in employment.

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6. Unemployment

The unemployment rate had generally been falling since late 2013 until the start of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. It increased until the end of 2020 but has now returned to pre-coronavirus pandemic levels. Over the latest three-month period, the unemployment rate decreased to the lowest rate since December to February 1974.

In the latest three-month period, the number of people unemployed for between 6 and 12 months increased, while there were decreases for the short-term (up to 6 months) and long-term (over 12 months) unemployed (Figure 5).

The Claimant Count (Experimental Statistics)

While there is still uncertainty regarding interpreting the Claimant Count, as a result of the introduction of Universal Credit and the impact of the pandemic (see Section 10: Glossary), the latest figures for September 2022 show a slight increase following a continuous decline since March 2021.  

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7. Economic inactivity

Since comparable records began in 1971, the economic inactivity rate had generally been falling; however, it increased during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. It has increased in June to August 2022 compared with the previous three-month period (March to May 2022). March to May 2022 had a lower inactivity rate compared with other recent periods, while the inactivity rate during the current period (June to August 2022) was more in line with other recent periods.

During the first year of the coronavirus pandemic, increases in economic inactivity were largely driven by those aged 16 to 24 years. This group had generally been decreasing since early 2021 but has increased in recent periods (Figure 6). More recent increases were also driven by those aged 50 to 64 years, with over 60% of the increase in economic inactivity during the pandemic (since December 2019 to February 2020) being driven by this age group. More detail on this trend is available in Movements out of work for those aged over 50 years since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, published on 14 March 2022. Economic inactivity for those aged 65 and over has been decreasing since February to March 2022 but increased in the latest period.

Although economic inactivity increased across all age groups in the latest three-month period (June to August 2022), those aged 50 to 64 years and those aged 16 to 24 years drove the increase in inactivity.

The increase in economic inactivity since the start of the coronavirus pandemic had been largely driven by those who were students and the long-term sick (Figure 7).

The number of those inactive because they are students has been decreasing since mid-2021 but has increased in recent periods. During the latest period, the number of economically inactive students measured prior to seasonal adjustment showed a decrease, but this was a much smaller decrease than is typically seen at this time of year. As result, the seasonally adjusted number of economically inactive students has increased. The increase in economic inactivity compared with the previous three-month period was also driven by the long-term sick, who increased to a record high.

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8. Redundancies

In June to August 2022, reports of redundancies in the three months prior to interview increased by 0.5 per thousand employees, compared with the previous three-month period, to 2.4 per thousand employees (Figure 9).

We are now also publishing a table showing potential redundancies, covering those notified by employers to the Insolvency Service through the "HR1" form, broken down by region and industry.

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9. Employment in the UK data

Employment, unemployment and economic inactivity by age group (seasonally adjusted)
Dataset A05 SA | Released 11 October 2022
Employment, unemployment, economic activity and inactivity by age group (seasonally adjusted). These estimates are sourced from the Labour Force Survey, a survey of households.

Full-time, part-time and temporary workers (seasonally adjusted)
Dataset EMP01 SA | Released 11 October 2022
Full-time, part-time and temporary workers (seasonally adjusted). These estimates are sourced from the Labour Force Survey, a survey of households.

Actual weekly hours worked (seasonally adjusted)
Dataset HOUR01 SA | Released 11 October 2022
Actual weekly hours worked (seasonally adjusted). These estimates are sourced from the Labour Force Survey, a survey of households.

Unemployment by age and duration (seasonally adjusted)
Dataset UNEM01 SA | Released 11 October 2022
Unemployment by age and duration (seasonally adjusted). These estimates are sourced from the Labour Force Survey, a survey of households.

Economic inactivity by reason (seasonally adjusted)
Dataset INAC01 SA | Released 11 October 2022
Economic inactivity (aged 16 to 64 years ) by reason (seasonally adjusted). These estimates are sourced from the Labour Force Survey, a survey of households.

Impact of LFS reweighting on key Labour Force Survey indicators
Dataset X08 | Released 14 June 2022
This table includes estimates of key LFS indicators using both old and new weighting methodology, and the revisions between the two series.

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10. Glossary

Actual and usual hours worked

Statistics for usual hours worked measure how many hours people usually work per week. Compared with actual hours worked, they are not affected by absences and so can provide a better measure of normal working patterns. For example, a person who usually works 37 hours a week but who was on holiday for a week would be recorded as working zero actual hours for that week, while usual hours would be recorded as 37 hours.

Workers temporarily absent from a job as a result of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic would still be classed as employed; however, they would be employed working no hours. This has directly affected estimates of total actual hours worked during the coronavirus pandemic. Since the average actual weekly hours are the average of all in employment, those temporarily absent from a job also affected these estimates.

Claimant Count

The Claimant Count is an Experimental Statistic that measures the number of people who are receiving a benefit principally for the reason of being unemployed. Currently the Claimant Count consists of those receiving Jobseekers' Allowance and Univeral Credit claimants in the "searching for work" conditionality group.

Economic inactivity

People not in the labour force (also known as economically inactive) are not in employment but do not meet the internationally accepted definition of unemployment because they have not been seeking work within the last four weeks and/or are unable to start work in the next two weeks. The economic inactivity rate is the proportion of people aged between 16 and 64 years who are not in the labour force.

Employment

Employment measures the number of people in paid work or who had a job that they were temporarily away from (for example, because they were on holiday or off sick). This differs from the number of jobs because some people have more than one job. The employment rate is the proportion of people aged between 16 and 64 years who are in employment.

Workers furloughed under the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS), or those who were self-employed but temporarily not in work, had a reasonable expectation of returning to their jobs after a temporary period of absence. Therefore, they were classified as employed under the International Labour Organization (ILO) definition.

A more detailed explanation is available in our Guide to labour market statistics.

Redundancies

The redundancy estimates measure the number of people who were made redundant or who took voluntary redundancy in the three months before the Labour Force Survey interviews; it does not take into consideration planned redundancies.

Unemployment

Unemployment measures people without a job who have been actively seeking work within the last four weeks and are available to start work within the next two weeks. The unemployment rate is not the proportion of the total population that is unemployed. It is the proportion of the economically active population (that is, those in work plus those seeking and available to work) that is unemployed.

A more detailed glossary is available.

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11. Measuring the data

This bulletin relies on data collected from the Labour Force Survey (LFS), which is the largest household survey in the UK.

More quality and methodology information on strengths, limitations, appropriate uses, and how the data were created is available in our LFS Quality and Methodology Information (QMI) report.

The LFS performance and quality monitoring reports provide data on response rates and other quality-related issues for the LFS.

Coronavirus (COVID-19)

View more information on how labour market data sources are affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

View a comparison of our labour market data sources and the main differences.

Making our published spreadsheets accessible

Following the Government Statistical Service (GSS) guidance on releasing statistics in spreadsheets, we will be amending our published tables over the coming months to improve usability, accessibility and machine readability of our published statistics. To help users change to the new formats, we will be publishing sample versions of a selection of our tables, and where practical, initially publish the tables in both the new and current formats. If you have any questions or comments, please email labour.market@ons.gov.uk.

Occupational data in ONS surveys

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has identified an issue with the collection of some occupational data in a number of our surveys, including the Labour Force Survey (LFS) and Annual Population Survey (APS), which are used in the production of the labour market publication. While we estimate any impacts will be small overall, this will affect the accuracy of the breakdowns of some detailed (four-digit Standard Occupational Classifications (SOC)) occupations, and data derived from them.

On 26 September 2022, the ONS published an article based on initial analysis of the potential impact on different four-digit SOC codes. The ONS advises to continue exercising caution in the use of detailed SOC breakdowns until the issue has been corrected.

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12. Strengths and limitations

Uncertainty in these data

The estimates presented in this bulletin contain uncertainty.

The figures in this bulletin come from the Labour Force Survey (LFS), which gathers information from a sample of households across the UK rather than from the whole population. The sample is designed to be as accurate as possible, given practical limitations. Results from sample surveys are always estimates, not precise figures. This can have an impact on how changes in the estimates should be interpreted, especially for short-term comparisons.

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The data in this bulletin come from the Labour Force Survey, which is a survey of households. It is not practical to survey every household each quarter, so these statistics are estimates based on a large sample.

As the sample gets smaller, the variability of the estimates gets larger. Estimates for small groups, which are based on small subsets of the LFS sample, are less reliable and tend to be more volatile than for larger aggregated groups.

In general, changes in the numbers (and especially the rates) reported in this bulletin between three-month periods are small and are not usually greater than the level that can be explained by sampling variability. Short-term movements in reported rates should be considered alongside longer-term patterns in the series and corresponding movements in other sources to give a fuller picture.

Information on the quality of estimates is available in our Labour Force Survey sampling variability table.

Comparability

The data in this bulletin follow internationally accepted definitions specified by the International Labour Organization (ILO). This ensures that the estimates for the UK are comparable with those for other countries.

The annual reconciliation report of job estimates article compares the latest workforce jobs series estimates with the equivalent estimates of jobs from the LFS. It is usually published in March each year following the benchmarking of workforce jobs. The 2022 article was postponed to October to allow for the reweighting of the data.

Further information is available in A guide to labour market statistics.

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14. Cite this statistical bulletin

Office for National Statistical (ONS), released 11 October 2022, ONS website, statistical bulletin, Employment in the UK: October 2022

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Contact details for this Statistical bulletin

Bob Watson
labour.market@ons.gov.uk
Telephone: +44 1633 455400