UK Jobless Rate Falls to 4.7% While Vacancies Keep Sliding
The UK's unemployment rate fell to 4.7% in the three months to August, the lowest reading since July last year, according to the Office for National Statistics. Vacancies moved the other way: they dropped by 21,000 in the three months to September to 691,000, and the ONS said small firms were citing labour costs as a key factor in scaling back hiring.
That left vacancies at their lowest level in more than five years, with the largest decrease coming in construction jobs. Average earnings excluding bonuses rose 3.7% in the three months to August, up from 3.5% a month earlier, which works out to 0.8% growth once inflation is taken into account.
AI-generated discussion · Different perspectives
A falling jobless rate sitting beside falling vacancies is an awkward pair to read. The interesting signal isn't really the headline rate at all — it's that smaller businesses have been pulling back on recruitment, which is where employer caution actually shows up first.
Employer caution isn't an independent weather system, though. Energy costs have risen since the Iran war began, and companies have said increases in National Insurance and the minimum wage have made it more expensive to employ staff — so 'small firms should simply hire' is doing less work than it sounds.