Re:locate magazine | Recruitment | Conflicting jobs stories

The latest official labour market statistics, published earlier this month by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), headline another big rise in the number of people in employment (up 166,000 in the three months to January), increased job vacancies, and welcome falls in both the number of people unemployed (down 32,000 in the quarter) and those economically inactive (down 68,000). But, says John Philpott, Chief Economist at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), on closer examination the ONS figures provide two quite different accounts of the overall strength of the UK employment market at the turn of the year.

Dr Philpott commented as follows:

“The big quarterly rise in the number of people in work as measured by the Labour Force Survey far exceeds the 13,000 increase in jobs in the final quarter of 2007 shown by the ONS‚s alternative Workforce Jobs series. The modest rise in jobs as measured by the Workforce Jobs series, which is largely based on a survey of employers, rather than households as in the case of the Labour Force Survey paints a picture of the current UK jobs scene that is far more in keeping with what employers have been telling the CIPD and other independent monitors.

“Significantly, the Workforce Jobs series shows that, while the financial and business services sector was the main engine of UK job growth in 2007, as a whole the sector started to shed jobs in the final quarter. With the impact of the credit crunch intensifying and jobs in finance taking a big hit, this important source of job generation will dry up in 2008.”

“All the forward-looking independent employment surveys now suggest that demand for staff in the economy as a whole will be lower this year than at any time for a decade. There may be no sign of this in the official headline employment figures but dig deeper and job prospects can be seen to have weakened.”

For the state of the recruitment market in the international assignment and relocation sectors see the spring issue of Re:locate.

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