More Brits are looking to get back to work

Unemployment in Britain has risen again and is now at 3.7 per cent, up 0.2 per cent on the quarter. It’s a very small change in the grand scheme of things but, perhaps counterintuitively, a change in the right direction.

This morning’s labour market update from the Office for National Statistics shows that while the headline unemployment figure has ticked up, the economic inactivity rate has slightly decreased by 0.1 per cent. This reflects a shift in the status of some working age people – approximately 55,000 between September and November 2022 – from being out of work and not seeking it to actively seeking work. With the redundancy rate slightly up but still ‘low’ according to the ONS – standing at 3.4 per thousand employees – the increase in the unemployment rate can be taken as a sign of more people registering their interest in going to work.