UK Job vacancies hit one year high in August
With our finger on the pulse of the UK job market we are happy to announce that UK job vacancies have hit a one year high as the UK economy continues to flow. Unemployment is down, competition for jobs is down, and we are seeing record levels of jobs being advertised in the UK. While broadly optimistic, we should keep in mind that youth unemployment is climbing and nearly a quarter of all vacancies being advertised in Britain this month are part time. Sustained economic growth is needed to achieve that all important 7% unemployment rate target set by the Bank of England earlier this year.
The Adzuna Job Index reveals there are currently 534,269 live vacancies in UK, up 1.5% over 12 months, bolstering hopes that recent signs of faster economic recovery are reaching the jobs market. Unemployment, now under more scrutiny than ever, has dropped faster than Mark Carney expected to 7.7% and there are 2% less people claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance than last month. Average wages are also looking healthier in the short term, up 0.7% from July to August 2013. However, a year-on-year comparison reminds us that a full recovery is still a challenge as average pay fell by 1.5% over the past 12 months, currently standing at £33,687p.a..
Where are all the jobs?
Competition for jobs has reached a one year low, down from 3.0 jobseekers per vacancy in August 2012 to 2.6 in August 2013. Seven out of the top ten best cities to get a job have less than one jobseeker per vacancy, and all of these are in the South of England with one exception: Aberdeen. Elsewhere in the North things are looking up for some major cities as competition eases. Newcastle, Manchester and Nottingham all experienced a let up in competition for jobs over the past 6 months. Glasgow, which features for the first time in the worst ten cities to find a job list, has seen competition for jobs intensify over the past six months to 6.9 jobseekers per vacancy.
Salary growth still tracks below inflation
For the second consecutive month this summer, average salaries have been showing some signs of life, up 0.9% over the past six months. However, on a 12 month comparison, employees are still worse off as wage growth consistently tracks below the rate of inflation. The data shows that while employers are looking to pay existing staff well, there is little appetite to pay new recruits well. Wages in the East of England have suffered the greatest loss, down 5.6% since August 2012, with Northern Ireland and Wales close behind with 5.6% and 4.9% decreases respectively. The only regions to experience positive salary growth year-on-year are the North East (+1.6%), thanks to wage increases in Newcastle and Middlesborough, and London (+1.1%).
Manufacturing, Retail and Property all improving
Economic growth earlier this year has bolstered employer confidence and, in turn, driven growth in the jobs market this month. There are more Manufacturing vacancies than this time last year, while average salaries in the Retail Sector are up 4% suggesting output in these sectors will continue to increase. Interestingly, the Property sector has seen more vacancies since the start of the year due to the resurgence of the housing market, and at the same time average advertised salaries are down 7.2% in the past 12 months.
James Knightley, Senior Economist at ING says “The report backs up evidence from the official labour market statistics report that there are strong regional variations in the performance of the labour market with London and the South East doing much better than the rest of the country. The Adzuna report suggests that there is little prospect of this situation changing anytime soon with the bulk of the vacancies still concentrated in this high growth region. Consequently, the regional divides in the UK look set to persist with important implications for retail trade and house prices.”
Check out previous Job Market Reports here (August 2013, July 2013, June 2013, May 2013) and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and Facebook to keep up to date with more exciting news. Also if you need anything data-wise contact us on here. Our resident army of data nerds are always happy to help 
