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Britain’s jobless rate rises to 3.9%

Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor of the exchequer, said it was “encouraging” that the unemployment rate remained low at 3.9%, despite the 0.1-point rise in the three months to March…reports Asian Lite News

The number of workers on UK employers’ payrolls dropped for the first time in two years last month amid signs that the flatlining economy has started to take a toll of Britain’s labour market.

Fresh figures from the Office for National Statistics showed a 136,000 fall in employees between March and April – the first reduction since February 2021.

Although the ONS said the data was provisional, the numbers on payrolls provide the most timely guide to the state of the jobs market and will be seen as evidence of a cooling in demand for labour. Despite April’s fall, payrolls are more than 800,000 higher than they were in February 2020, the month before the UK went into its first Covid-19 lockdown.

The official figures showed employment and unemployment up in the first three months of 2023. With the cost of living crisis hitting household budgets, there was a record flow of people out of inactivity and into work. The unemployment rate rose unexpectedly to 3.9% from 3.8%.

Job vacancies fell by 55,000 to just over 1m in the three months ending in April, the 10th consecutive quarterly drop. The number of people inactive as a result of long-term sickness reached a fresh record of 2.55 million.

The ONS director of economic statistics, Darren Morgan, said: “Employment and unemployment both rose again in the first three months of 2023, driven in particular by men. This means the number of those neither working nor looking for work continues to fall, although the number of people not working due to long-term sickness rose again, to a new record.”

Despite the highest pay growth in the public sector for two decades, the ONS said workers in public and private sectors were becoming worse off because prices were rising faster than wages. Average regular pay growth for the private sector was 7.0% and for the public sector was 5.6% in January to March, but the cost of living rose by 10.1% in the year to March.

Meanwhile, the number of days lost through strikes rose from 332,000 in February to 556,000 in March, with 80% of the total the result of action in the health and education sectors.

Kitty Ussher, the chief economist at the Institute of Directors, said: “A combination of high costs and cash-strapped consumers is now causing some businesses to hesitate before hiring, uncertain as to what the future holds.”

Chris Thomas, the head of the Commission on Health and Prosperity at the Institute for Public Policy Research thinktank, said: “More people are now out of work due to ill-health than any other time since records began. This is a damning indictment of this government’s record on our health. Long-term sickness is fatally undermining our economy and holding back people’s ability to live long, happy and prosperous lives.”

Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor of the exchequer, said it was “encouraging” that the unemployment rate remained low at 3.9%, despite the 0.1-point rise in the three months to March.

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India News

India’s urban jobless rate improves across genders

Since some kinds of jobs, like those in agriculture, are seasonal in nature, unemployment rate comparisons are best made for the same quarter across years…reports Asian Lite News

India’s urban unemployment rate improved remarkably in the April-June quarter, revealed the National Statistical Office.

It dipped to 7.6 per cent during the April-June quarter from 12.6 per cent during the corresponding quarter a year ago. It is a clear indication that the country’s economy is coming out the grip of Covid-induced slowdown.

India’s urban unemployment rate improved across genders and age groups to its best-ever level in the quarter ending June 2022.

India’s headline urban unemployment rate was 7.6 per cent in the quarter ending June, compared to 8.2 per cent in the quarter ending March, 12.7 per cent in the June quarter of 2021-22, and 8.9 per cent in the June quarter of 2019-20.

Joblessness was high in April-June 2021 mainly due to the staggering impact of Covid-related restrictions in the country.

The 15th Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) showed that the unemployment rate among females (aged 15 years and above) in urban areas declined to 9.5 per cent in April-June, 2022 from 14.3 per cent a year ago. It was 10.1 per cent in January-March, 2022.

Among males, the unemployment rate in urban areas dipped to 7.1 per cent in April-June 2022 compared to 12.2 per cent a year ago. It was 7.7 per cent in January-March 2022.

Since some kinds of jobs, like those in agriculture, are seasonal in nature, unemployment rate comparisons are best made for the same quarter across years.

However, the remarkable improvement in this rate can be seen from the fact that it is the lowest rate since the quarter ending June 2018, the first quarter for which the quarterly bulletins have data, revealed media reports.

That the improvement in unemployment rate was not lopsided can be seen from the fact that it improved across groups. The quarterly bulletin gives a breakup of unemployment rate by gender and by three age groups: all ages, 15-29 years, and 15 years and above.

Unemployment rates for all these groups was the best in the quarter ending June, media reports said.

Similarly, at 37.2 per cent, the labour force participation rate (LFPR) – or the share of population working or seeking work – in the first quarter of the current financial year was the highest for this quarter for any year since 2018-19 and 10 basis points (100th of a percentage point) higher than in the first quarter of last year.

While LFPR was not at its best level in the quarterly bulletin’s history like the unemployment rate, it is enough for it to be best for the June quarter because of the seasonality factor.

The broad industry-wise breakup of workers further showed that employment prospects also improved. The share of workers in agriculture, secondary sector (which includes sectors like manufacturing and mining), and tertiary sector (comprises services) was 5.7 per cent, 34 per cent and 60.3 per cent, respectively.

The share in agriculture is an improvement over the June quarters of FY 2021-22 and FY 2020-21, both affected by lockdowns, but not over FY 2019-20, when only 4.9 per cent were in agriculture.

The share in tertiary sector was similarly a higher 62 per cent in FY 2019-20, a clear sign that though people are seeking and finding jobs with the pandemic under control, they may not be earning as much as they did before the pandemic. These signs will be confirmed or rejected when the unit-level data becomes available, the report stated.

Labour force refers to the part of the population which supplies or offers to supply labour for pursuing economic activities for the production of goods and services and, therefore, includes both employed and unemployed persons.

The NSO launched PLFS in April 2017. On the basis of PLFS, a quarterly bulletin is brought out giving estimates of labour force indicators namely unemployment rate, worker population ratio (WPR), labour force participation rate (LFPR), distribution of workers by broad status in employment and industry of work in Current Weekly Status.

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