Weekly news round-up: from the latest ONS stats to the falling birthrate

Employment fell during the three months from April to June while unemployment is up, according to the latest Office for National Statistics [ONS] figures.

The unemployment rate increased by 0.3 percentage points on the quarter to 4.2%. The ONS says the increase in unemployment was driven by people who have been unemployed for up to six months which is in line with a rise in redundancies.

Meanwhile, the economic inactivity figures were down, largely due to those who had not been working because they were caring for family looking to find work. The ONS says there was a significant shift from economic inactivity into unemployment in the period. Nevertheless, the number of people who are economically inactive due to health reasons, exacerbated by the crisis in the NHS, increased to a record high.

Meanwhile, job vacancies continued to fall – for the 13th consecutive period – and total hours worked fell as employers, hit by economic pressures due to inflation, interest rate rises and other uncertainty, sought to cut costs. These pressures are likely to work their way down the supply chain in the next months with a potential impact on redundancies, says the ONS.

Pay rises were also high – at 7.8% on average – but this varied according to sector. Annual average regular pay growth for the private sector was 8.2% in April to June 2023 and 6.2% in the public sector, although the latter was significantly affected by the NHS bonus payment. The finance and business services sector saw the largest annual regular growth rate at 9.4%, followed by the manufacturing sector at 8.2%. Inflation was running at 7.9% in June. Experts say the pay rises are unlikely to be sustained and are in large part due to ongoing labour shortages in some sectors.

Meanwhile, despite a reduction in CPI inflation to 6.8 per cent – driven by falling gas and electricity prices – core inflation (excluding energy, food, alcohol and tobacco) remained static.

The ONS also reported that just 18% of businesses currently trading expect turnover to increase in September 2023.

Report calls for more action on disability pay gap

The UK Government should introduce mandatory disability pay and employment reporting, according to a new report from the Equality and Human Rights Commission [EHRC].

The EHRC report to the UN repeats previous calls for greater efforts to create a more equal playing field for disabled workers and gives an update on the steps taken by the UK Government and the devolved administrations to implement UN recommendations.

It recommends, for instance, that the UK Government should assess the effectiveness of the Voluntary Reporting Framework or the Disability Confident Scheme on improving employment outcomes for disabled people to inform future policy development.

While it welcomes the recently published Health and Disability White Paper which, among other things, removed the controversial Work Capability Assessment [WCA], it says that “there remain concerns that benefits and other financial support offered to disabled people do not go far enough, considering in particular how disabled people have been impacted by recent cost-of-living increases and the COVID-19 pandemic.”

It also points out concerns about changes to benefits sanctions policy and says there are worries about what will replace the WCA on the grounds that it may exclude some people from the health component of Universal Credit they need in future.

Home and hybrid working up amid cost of living crisis

Over a third of employers (36%) have seen an increase in staff working from home compared to 2022 in response to the cost of living crisis, according to Acas.

Acas is advising employers to have a flexible, home or hybrid working policy which explains how someone can request it, how job roles will be assessed and how decisions will be made, ensure that decisions around whether to agree to a staff request for home working should be fair and transparent and potentially discuss alternative forms of flexible working if home working is not practical for a specific role.

It is currently consulting on its new draft Code of Practice on handling requests for flexible working which has been updated to reflect shifts to flexible working and upcoming changes to the law.

Insecure working increases, driven by BME workers

The number of Black and ethnic minority (BME) workers in insecure work more than doubled from 2011 to 2022  – up from 360,200 to 836,300 – according to TUC analysis.

The chance of a BME worker being in an insecure job has also increased, with one in six in this position now compared to one in eight in 2011.

The TUC says the “boom” in BME workers in insecure work accounts for the vast majority of the overall increase in insecure workers over the last decade.

BME workers account for two thirds of the growth of insecure workers in this period – despite BME workers making up just 14% of the overall workforce.

Those in insecure jobs have fewer rights and protections and are often on very low pay. This means managers can change or take away their hours without notice.

The TUC estimates that there are 3.9 million people in insecure employment in the UK, with  London (13.3%) and the South West (12.7%) having the highest proportion of people working in insecure jobs.

The industries with the highest proportion of insecure work are the elementary occupations, caring, and leisure services, and process, plant and machine operatives.

While the percentage of BME workers in insecure roles rose by from 12.2% to 17.8% between 2011 and 2022, among white workers the increase was much smaller – up from 10.5% to 10.8%. The TUC says BME women are much more likely than white women to be in insecure work (15.7% of BME women in work compared to 9.9% white women).

Research shows low awareness of pensions issues