Britain's Job Market Cools With Unemployment At Four-Year High

London: Britain's labor market is showing further signs of cooling, with both job vacancies and payrolled employees declining, while the unemployment rate in the April-June period held at a four-year high, official data showed Tuesday.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) reported that job vacancies fell by 5.8 percent in the May-July quarter to 718,000. Vacancies decreased in 16 of the 18 industry sectors monitored, with the sharpest drop in arts, entertainment, and recreation, down 17.6 percent from the previous quarter.

The number of payrolled employees in June was down by 149,000, or 0.5 percent, compared with a year earlier, and by 26,000, or 0.1 percent, from the previous month. Early estimates for July put the figure at 30.3 million.

"The UK's post-pandemic labor market was red hot. But that period is officially over, the labor market is loose and getting looser, having shed 165,000 payrolled jobs over the past eight months," said Hannah Slaughter, senior economist at the Resolution Foundation.

Britain's unemployment rate stood at 4.7 percent in the April-June period, remaining at a four-year-high.

"Taken together, these latest figures point to a continued cooling of the labor market," said Liz McKeown, ONS director of economic statistics.

Stephen Evans, chief executive of the Learning and Work Institute, noted the largest job losses were in retail and hospitality. "These sectors also have the strongest pay growth, so it's likely that a weak economy, rising minimum wage, and higher employer costs are impacting jobs," he said.

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