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The number of job vacancies has continued to surge, but the number of employees on company payrolls is still far below pre-pandemic levels. Vacancies reached a record high of 953,000 in May to July 2021, having grown by 290,000 compared with the previous quarter and by 168,000 compared with January to March 2020, according to the Office for National Statistics. However, the labour market continued to tighten and there was a quarterly increase in the employment rate of 0.3 percentage points, to 75.1% in April to June 2021, along with an 0.2 percentage point decrease in the unemployment rate to 4.7%. Although the number of employees on organisations’ payrolls increased by 182,000 to 28.9 million in July, there were still 201,000 fewer people on payrolls than in February 2020. Redundancies decreased on the quarter in April to June 2021 and returned to pre-pandemic levels. The redundancy rate per 1,000 employees was 3.6%. Jonathan Boys, labour market economist at the CIPD, said the availability of jobs was likely to mean that the withdrawal of the furlough scheme next month would be “relatively painless”. “Recruitment and importantly retention are picking up the slack. Industries with the biggest surge in vacancies are the ones that used furlough the most, including arts and entertainment, and hospitality,” he said. “Vacancies are a forward-looking indicator due to lead times in recruitment, so we can be confident that employment will continue to increase over the coming months which coincides with the end of furlough. The redundancy rate is back to pre-pandemic levels which is another positive sign that the end of furlough will be relatively painless with minimal job losses.” However, Recruitment and Employment Confederation chief executive Neil Carberry warned that record vacancy numbers emphasised the risk posed by labour shortages in many sectors.
