There are two ways of looking at the state of Britain’s labour market. In one it is a case of the glass being half full, in the other half empty.
If you are a government minister you take the former view. Nadhim Zahawi said the unemployment rate of 3.8% has rarely been lower in decades and the chancellor is right about that.
What’s more, the economy continued to create net new jobs in the three months to June, with employment rising by 160,000 over the quarter. Flash estimates suggest the pattern continued into July.
With job vacancies at near-record levels, the labour market looks in good shape to withstand the recession the Bank of England is forecasting for the UK. The economy contracted slightly in the three months to June, but demand for workers remained strong.
That’s the upbeat way of looking at the latest jobs figures from the Office for National Statistics. Ruth Gregory, UK economist at Capital Economics, says “by any metric the labour market is still very tight”.
