Vacancies and jobs in the UK: February 2024

• Labour market overview

• Average weekly earnings in Great Britain

• Employment in the UK

• Earnings and employment from Pay As You Earn Real Time Information, UK

• The estimated number of vacancies in November 2023 to January 2024 was 932,000, a decrease of 26,000 from August to October 2023.

• Vacancy numbers fell on the quarter for the 19th consecutive period in November 2023 to January 2024, down by 2.7% since August to October 2023, with the estimated number of vacancies falling in 12 of the 18 industry sectors.

• Total estimated vacancies were down by 209,000 in November 2023 to January 2024, from the level of a year previous, although they remained 131,000 above their pre-coronavirus (COVID-19) January to March 2020 levels.

• The industry sectors showing the largest annual decreases in the number of vacancies were human health and social work activities, and accommodation and food service activities, which fell by 41,000 and 37,000, respectively.

In November 2023 to January 2024, the estimated number of vacancies fell on the quarter for the 19th consecutive period. The current sequence of quarterly falls in our vacancy estimates is the longest ever recorded, but has slowed in the latest period, with the smallest fall in the number of vacancies since May to July 2022.

The headline vacancy estimates are based on three-month averages, which naturally involve some time lag. Insights into trends in January 2024 are provided by two alternative data sources, single-month vacancy estimates (see Strengths and limitations) in Dataset X06, and statistics in development from Adzuna Online job advert estimates.

The estimated total number of vacancies fell by 2.7% from the previous quarter, with electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply contracting the most, falling by 11.1%, followed by arts, entertainment and recreation, which fell by 8.7%.

In November 2023 to January 2024, the estimated number of vacancies fell on the quarter by 26,000 to 932,000. The industry showing the largest fall in vacancy numbers was human health and social work activities, which was down by 11,000 from the previous quarter.

When comparing November 2023 to January 2024 with the same time the previous year, total vacancies decreased by 209,000 (18.3%) with falls in 17 of the 18 industry sectors. The industry that decreased the most was human health and social work activities, where the estimated number of vacancies fell by 41,000 (19.6%).

The total estimated number of vacancies remains 131,000 above January to March 2020 pre-coronavirus (COVID-19) levels, with human health and social work activities showing the largest increase, at 31,000. Four industry sectors fell below pre-coronavirus levels with a combined fall of 13,000 vacancies, with the largest single fall in wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles, which was down by an estimated 5,000 vacancies.

The overall ratio of vacancies per 100 employee jobs in November 2023 to January 2024 was 3.0 for the fourth consecutive period. Accommodation and food service activities currently has the highest ratio at 4.5 but has been trending downwards since April to June 2022 when it was 7.2.

The total number of vacancies fell on the quarter with decreases across the majority of size bands; only businesses with 10 to 49 employees increased, growing by 1.1%.

The workforce jobs estimates are provided from various sources. Employee jobs in the private sector are drawn from surveys relating to a reference date of 15 September 2023. Self-employment job estimates for September 2023 have been projected because of the unavailability of data from the Labour Force Survey (LFS); this is outlined in the Estimates used for projections in workforce jobs in Section 7: Measuring the data.

Our estimated number of workforce jobs for September 2023 (next updated March 2024) was a record 36.8 million, an increase of 210,000 jobs since June 2023. The estimated number of workforce jobs is 1.1 million above its December 2019 pre-coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic level.

The total number of jobs includes both employee jobs and self-employment jobs with the former causing the quarterly increase. Employee jobs increased by 179,000 on the quarter to September 2023, rising to a record high of 32.5 million and are 1.8 million above their December 2019 pre-coronavirus levels. Self-employment jobs estimates have not shown the same levels of growth and remain 625,000 below those of a pre-coronavirus December 2019. The growth in the employee jobs component of workforce jobs up to September 2023 can also be seen in the number of payrolled employees reported in the Earnings and employment from Pay As You Earn Real Time Information, seasonally adjusted dataset, which has shown a similar growth pattern over the same period.

Across industries the recovery has varied, with 8 of the 20 sectors still below their pre-coronavirus levels in September 2023. The sectors showing the largest increases in job number were human health and social work activities, which was up by 395,000, and accommodation and food service activities, which was up by 291,000. These gains were slightly offset by job losses in wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles, which remain 253,000 below December 2019 levels.

Vacancies

Positions for which employers are actively seeking recruits from outside their business or organisation are defined as vacancies. The estimates are based on the Vacancy Survey; this is a survey of employers designed to provide estimates of the stock of vacancies across the economy, excluding agriculture, forestry and fishing (a small sector for which the collection of estimates would not be practical).

Jobs

An activity performed for an employer or customer by a worker in exchange for payment, usually in cash, or in kind, or both, is defined as a job. The number of jobs is not the same as the number of people in employment. This is because a person can have more than one job. The number of jobs is the sum of employee jobs from employer surveys, self-employment jobs from the Labour Force Survey (LFS), those in HM Forces and government-supported trainees. The number of people in employment is measured by the LFS; these estimates are available in our Employment in the UK releases.

A more detailed glossaryis available.

Important note

We have reintroduced some of our Labour Force Survey (LFS) estimates from our February 2024 Labour market publication, see our article Impact of reweighting on Labour Force Survey key indicators: 2024. The reweighted LFS will be incorporated into our workforce jobs estimates from the March 2024 publication.

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.

Coronavirus

For more information on how labour market data sources are affected by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, see the article published on 6 May 2020, which details some of the challenges that we have faced in producing estimatesat this time.

An article, published on 11 December 2020, compares our labour market data sources and discusses some of the main differences.

Workforce jobs estimates include data from the Labour Force Survey (LFS). From 15 July 2021, an improved LFS weighting methodology, better accounting for population changes through the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic was implemented, affecting periods from January to March 2020 onwards. For more information on the changes to LFS weighting methodology through the pandemic please see our article on the LFS Survey weighting methodology.

Sources

The data in this bulletin come from surveys of businesses. It is not feasible to survey every business in the UK, so these statistics are estimates based on samples, not precise figures.

Vacancies

Estimates of vacancies are obtained from the Vacancy Survey, a survey of employers. Adzuna Online job advert estimates are also published as part of our Economic activity and social change in the UK, real-time indicators bulletin.

Jobs

Estimates of jobs are compiled from a number of sources, including Short-Term Employment Surveys (STES), the Quarterly Public Sector Employment Surveys (QPSES) and the Labour Force Survey (LFS). STES is a group of surveys that collect employment and turnover information from private sector businesses. In December of each year, the jobs estimates are "benchmarked" to the latest estimates from the Business Register and Employment Survey (BRES).

Further information on revisions to the LFS are explained in our Impact of reweighting on Labour Force Survey key indicators article.

The STES estimates are drawn for a specified date early in the last month of each calendar quarter. The March 2020 data were from 13 March 2020 before the start of coronavirus (COVID-19) social distancing measures.

For more information on how jobs data are measured, please see the Measuring the data section in our previous release.

More quality and methodology information on strengths, limitations, appropriate uses, and how the data were created is available in the Vacancy Survey QMI and Workforce jobs QMI.

Sampling variability

The sampling variability of the three-month average vacancies level is plus or minus 1.3% of that level expressed as a coefficient of variation, giving a 95% confidence interval for estimates of approximately plus or minus 32,000.

The sampling variability of the three-month average vacancies level, for a typical industrial sector is around plus or minus 6% of that level.

Information on the strengths and limitations of this bulletin are available in our Vacancies and jobs in the UK: April 2021 bulletin.