The headline bad news was the rise in the unemployment rate from 4.8 to 5 per cent, its highest outside the pandemic since 2016. There was also a renewed fall in employment, on all measures. Payroll jobs, having been provisionally estimated as falling by 10,000 in September, were now thought to have dropped by 32,000, followed by another 32,000 decline in October.<\/p>\n
Even the labour force survey, which has been suffering measurement issues<\/a> and defying gravity, showed a 22,000 fall in July to September. Construction jobs, essential for the rebuilding of Britain and the government\u2019s housebuilding target, are falling. At just more than 2 million, they have dropped by a fifth since 2016.<\/p>\n Hopes of stabilisation have given way, it seems, to renewed decline, and it is not hard to see why. Fears have grown about Reeves\u2019s<\/a> budget and the inevitability of significant tax rises. This backdrop means many businesses think this is no time to be increasing headcounts.<\/p>\n Rachel Reeves will deliver the budget on November 26<\/p>\n TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER RICHARD POHLE<\/p>\n Are there any glimmers of light? One is that the long fall in job vacancies appears to have come to an end, as hinted at a month ago, with a tiny rise of 2,000 (to 723,000) in the August to October period.<\/p>\n The rise in the unemployment rate, which has accelerated in recent months, should probably be set against a fall in the economic inactivity rate. As the unemployment rate has risen from 4.3 to 5 per cent between July and September last year and this, so the inactivity rate has also dropped, from 21.6 to 21 per cent.<\/p>\n The terminology is confusing. People who are inactive, more than 9 million, can become economically active but unemployed if they make themselves available for work, and this has been happening. The number of economically inactive people because of long-term ill health<\/a> looks to be stuck at 2.8 million, compared with 2 million before the pandemic. But inactivity for other reasons has declined marginally. Encouragingly, 2.1 million economically inactive people say they want a job, up by 300,000 over the past two years.<\/p>\n Some economists have also detected signs of life in non-official surveys. Allan Monks of JP Morgan, while conceding that the official labour market report was weak, sees \u201csome green shoots on job growth\u201d in such surveys, though probably not strong enough to prevent a further rise in unemployment.<\/p>\n![\"Chancellor](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/\/eef7078c-58fc-45e4-8da7-aa4638c4008c.jpg\")
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