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For the first time in many years the unemployment rate in the UK increased quite significantly during the pandemic. In 2011 Sept to Nov had a high rate of 8.5% unemployed in the UK, which continued to decline until Oct to Dec 2019 to 3.8%, before the start of the pandemic. Within a year (Oct to Dec 2020) it hit a high of 5.2%, but has since started to decline. Unemployment has not been at this rate since Aug to Oct 2015. It now sits at 4.7%, from the most recent quarter (Apr - Jun 2021). So although the unemployment rates have significantly reduced over a 10 year period, they have reached the equal level of just over 6 years ago during this pandemic.
However the last quarter saw 1 million vacancies advertised at one time, and employers are struggling to fill their vacancies. It is reported that a lot of these are in the Arts, leisure, and hospitality sector, and suspected that the reasons behind this are that people are worried about the industry being hit again.
Although the government have created different schemes during this time (which I will explore in the next blog) and increased the incentive for employers taking on apprentices. Other developments have been happening within the economy too, which I will open up in blog 5.
Starting to see some positives is quite reassuring after the challenging time most of us have had during this last 22 months.