Richard Exell

Today we publish our latest Labour Market Report, looking at the latest employment and unemployment figures. There’s some good news, including very strong employment growth and a significant fall in the number of redundancies. But there are worrying indicators as well. ‘Claimant count’ unemployment is up a little, so is unemployment among 18–24 year olds. There has been an increase short-term unemployment that could be a blip or could be the first sign of something worse.

Altogether, these figures suggest a labour market that has begun to reflect the GDP growth that has been taking place for several months, but not the self-sustaining growth that would alleviate worries about the impact of government cuts.