The number of people in the UK who are in jobs has dropped over the last few months, with just 75.4 per cent of adults in employment.
Earlier this week, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) published its Employment in the UK. September 2022 figures, which showed the rate had declined by 0.2 percentage points in May to July 2022 from the previous quarter.
This means it is now 1.1 percentage points lower than it was prior to the pandemic, between December 2019 and February 2020. At this point, it reached a record high of 76.6 per cent, having climbed 0.4 per cent from the previous year and 0.2 per cent since the preceding quarter, showing how buoyant the labour market was at the time.
However, the rate has been declining since the pandemic, partly due to businesses having closed during lockdowns or people in self-employment.
According to ONS, there are 4.2 million self-employed people in the UK. However, this is a drop from a peak of five million in October to December 2019, despite two decades of continuous growth.
Meanwhile, the proportion of unemployed people has also dropped among 16 to 64-year-olds. The unemployment rate of 3.6 per cent represents a 0.2 percentage drop from the previous quarter, and is 0.4 percentage points lower than pre-pandemic levels.
Despite there being fewer people in employment, there are also fewer people unemployed in the UK, showing signs of economic recovery, which will good news for freelancers and small businesses too.
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