REC response to ONS labour market figures, July 2023

The ONS has published its latest labour market update this morning. Commenting on the statistics, Neil Carberry, Chief Executive of REC, said:

“The labour market has softened since last summer, but overall demand remains high. This shows underlying need to hire among businesses despite their concerns about inflation, interest rates and weak economic growth. The ongoing demand for temps shows this in action. Our temporary jobs market enables companies to grow even in this period of economic uncertainty and offers job seekers the chance to get a foot in the door, earn a bit more, learn new skills and control of their work/life balance.

“The rise in employment and unemployment shows economic inactivity is going down, which is vital to boosting incomes and overcoming labour shortages that constrain the economy’s growth. The fall in inactivity appears driven by non-working household members seeking to boost household income in the face of inflation – the challenge of high numbers of people off work sick remains, even if numbers have now stabilised.

“Pay pressure remains significant as firms move to retain and attract staff by mitigating the effect of inflation as far as they can afford to. While wages are growing lower than inflation, they are actually rising at their fastest rate in many years. But sustainable wage rises require economic and productivity growth, and affordable access to capital for businesses. These should be priorities. Government needs to focus on how we get investment going to drive growth. Part of that is policies that deal with labour shortages in the medium-term, across childcare, transport, skills and immigration. Companies can do more too – reaching out into different pools of candidate and amending their offer with the advice of recruiters to ensure they can recruit and retain a diverse pool of talent.”

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Notes to editors:

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