Commentary & media mentions

English articles

• Bloomberg - U.K. Lost Workers to EU During Covid and Brexit, LinkedIn Says

• Newsweek - Vaccine Unlikely to Halt Unemployment as U.K. Job Losses Reach Record High

• The Guardian - Low demand for UK office workers reveals ‘asymmetric recovery’

• Sky News - Coronavirus: Job vacancies in UK have fallen by more than 40% amid lockdown

• CNBC - The US lags Europe and China in the labor market recovery race, economists say

• Bloomberg - Britons Get Better Pay, Benefits as EU Workers Shun U.K. Jobs

• The Telegraph - Wages rise to attract British workers

• The Times - It’s one-way traffic for EU migrants and Britain

• The Irish Times - CSO revises State’s unemployment rate up to 6.1%

• Business Insider - The number of EU citizens looking for work in Britain is collapsing as Article 50 looms

• Reuters - UK job vacancies fall on Brexit worries, higher minimum wage

• The Independent - The top nine jobs of the future – will you be employed?

• BBC Breakfast - Job Searches brexodus and Indeed (Oct 1, 2017)

Other languages

• La Repubblica (Italian) - Linkedin vede lo stop del mercato del lavoro

• Avvenire (Italian) - Linkedin. Covid-19 e tasso di assunzione

• Wired (Italian) - Cosa dicono i dati di Linkedin su ricerche di lavoro e assunzioni

• Forbes (Italian) - Il lavoro dopo Covid-19: i dati e le previsioni di Linkedin

• Le Monde (French) - Forum Expat: à l’heure du Brexit, le lent effritement de l’attractivité britannique

November 2022

Despite all the gloom, there were no clear signs of a marked deterioration in UK labor market conditions in Q3 2022. Demand remained strong (despite cooling down somewhat) and hiring didn't slow down. 

• Compared to pre-pandemic averages, both the level of hires and job-to-job transitions stayed elevated in Q3.

• This means that hiring conditions remained very challenging, as more people left the labor force (while fewer came back) over the quarter, leaving the UK labor force smaller than pre-pandemic. 

• It should not come as a surprise then, that an increasing share of new hires was made of workers who quit a previous job, contributing to increasing competition for talent.

• Going forward —while both job vacancy and hiring levels are expected to cool down in Q4— given the current labor force participation trends, it may take a significant correction in demand to decrease tightness in the labor market in a meaningful way.

January 2022

A mixed bag of labour market numbers today: unemployment decreased, but employment and participation continued to stagnate.

The UK labour force continues to shrink as unemployment goes (nearly) back to pre-pandemic levels

• Big falls in the three months to November brought the unemployment rate virtually back to its pre-pandemic level. Coupled with a record number of open vacancies this means that, in theory, today there is a job open for almost every person out of work in the UK (i.e. the ratio of unemployed people to vacancies is at a record low of just 1.1)

• This, however, doesn’t mean that people are rushing to join the labour force and to get these jobs. Employment increased only modestly over the same period and remains stuck at 600K below its pre-covid level (the gap in participation is about 400K). Single-month data showed that employment actually fell both in October and November. This was not due to an increase in redundancies, but rather mostly attributable to an increase in older people leaving the workforce because of long-term sickness or early retirement.

Strong demand for workers fails to push wage growth above inflation

• Despite low unemployment, an unprecedented boom in job vacancies, and a level of pay growth that is above that prevailing before the pandemic, real wage growth in the last quarter of CY21 was zero (and actually fell for the single month of November).

• For many workers who entered the job market over the last decade or so, this may feel like a return to an upsetting but familiar dynamic. The twelve years before the onset of the pandemic were a time of “pay squeeze” for UK workers: in December 2019 average pay had finally gone back to its 2007 level in real terms.  

June 2021

Latest ONS data shows that the UK  labour market recovery continues at pace with solid job gains in the hospitality & leisure sectors and for younger workers.

The labour market recovery continues at pace, but it will take time to fully recover from the COVID job losses

• In the three months to April employment went up to 75.2% (+0.2pp) and unemployment down to 4.7% (-0.3pp) compared to the previous quarter. The share of working-age people who don’t have a job and are not looking for one (the inactivity rate) remained unchanged at 21.0%.

• Payrolled employment increased by 197K in May (MoM) and was particularly strong in the hospitality and leisure sectors, which benefited from easing restrictions, but employee numbers in both sectors remain more than 15% below pre-crisis levels.

• The Resolution Foundation estimates that while the ‘Covid employment gap’ has fallen by more than half since February, almost 3 million workers still remain either furloughed or out of work. Going forward, the challenge will be to close this gap as much as possible before the furlough scheme is phased out.

With vacancies at a record high, hiring of young workers is finally picking up

• Vacancies have grown very strongly in recent months and – using single month data – these are now above pre-pandemic levels. Despite the boom in vacancies, however, the labour market remains less “tight” than pre-pandemic. The ratio of unemployed people for each open job – a measure of labour market tightness – is today lower than the 2019 average in every sector.

• After a smaller gain in April, people under 25 years of age saw the greatest increase in payrolled employment in May. Despite the gains over the last two months, the number of payrolled employees under-25 remains 10% below pre-pandemic levels, while the number for all employees is only 2% below (see chart below).  

Impact of COVID on the gender employment gap in the UK

• A new analysis published by the Resolution Foundation yesterday shows that the COVID shock on UK employment has been felt almost equally by men and women, contrary to what most expected.

• Looking at changes in employment for men and women between February 2020 and April 2021, the biggest job losses affected women working part-time and self-employed men, while full-time female workers fared best.

• This was due to the fact that sectors such as health & social work and education –which tend to be dominated by both women and the public sector– proved to be particularly resilient. At the same time, men-dominated manufacturing was hit harder than expected.

May 2021

Despite lockdown restrictions in place, the UK labour market showed continued resilience in the first quarter of CY21 as unemployment inched down again and employment increased. While these are positive signs, it will take more time to get back to pre-pandemic levels of employment (especially for younger workers) and bring people who were sidelined over the past year back into the labour force.

The labour market is proving to be more resilient than expected

• In Q1 CY21 employment was up (+0.2pp) and unemployment down (-0.3pp) compared to Q4. The share of working age people who don’t have a job and are not looking for one (the inactivity rate) also increased, albeit just by 0.1pp.

• While unemployment is still likely to rise in the coming months, particularly as the furlough programme unwinds, it increasingly looks like the peak will be a much lower level than had been predicted even just few months ago. 

Hiring is picking up and is expected to accelerate

• Payroll data showed the number of employees increased at the sharpest pace since the start of the pandemic in April, although it remains 772K below pre-pandemic numbers. For the first time since the pandemic began, we saw an increase in the number of employees under 25 years of age. This group, however, remain the hardest hit.  The number of workers under-25 on payroll was still 12.4% below pre-pandemic levels in April, compared to the number of employees aged 25 or above which is only 1.1% below.

• According to the ONS, total hiring as measured by flows into new jobs is also back to pre-crisis levels.

Labour market confidence  is back with the share of resignations approaching pre-pandemic levels

• New data on total job-to-job moves (released on a quarterly basis by the ONS) shows that resignations –an indicator of workers’ confidence about current labour market conditions– are virtually back to pre-pandemic levels. At the same time, dismissals and redundancies made up just 10% of total job moves in CY21 Q1, down from a peak of 20% registered last summer.

April 2021

The UK labour market remained resilient in the three months to February, even as tougher Covid restrictions were put in place. While further deterioration has largely halted in recent months, it’s still too early to point to any solid signs of recovery.

• Defying expectations of a slight increase, unemployment actually decreased in the three months to February 2021. It now stands at 4.9%, 0.1 p.p. lower than previous quarter. This drop in joblessness, however, came as employment fell and the number of inactive people (those not employed or looking for work) increased over the quarter. 

• After a four-month long streak of gains, the number of employees on payrolls also fell by 56k in March and it remains 2.8% below its pre-Covid level.

• As more stringent lockdown measures were introduced, hours worked only decreased 2.1% QoQ in the three months to February, stalling the recent recovery. This fall, however, is much smaller than the 18% drop in hours worked registered a year ago during the first wave of the pandemic, showing that many businesses have adapted to operating with restrictions in place. 

• Job vacancies increased 16% MoM between February and March, but their level remains 23% down compared to a year ago. Smaller companies (with less than 10 employees) seem to be those struggling the most, registering a 21.9% QoQ drop in vacancies in Q1 2021, while the number of vacancies at bigger firms increased over the same period.

• The redundancy rate is also down substantially from its autumn peak when employers were expecting the furlough scheme to end imminently, but it remains still above pre-pandemic levels. 

February 2021

A stabilisation in the UK labour market conditions continued in the final quarter of 2020, as the sharp deterioration experienced after the summer temporarily abated, mainly thanks to the extension of government support measures. 

• The latest release shows more signs of a stabilisation in the UK labour market as 2020 drew to a close. In the final quarter of last year, the unemployment rate inched up to 5.1% (which doesn’t include furloughed workers), settling at a level which is only about one percentage point above pre-Covid, after rising sharply over 2020.

• The labour market turbulence experienced after the summer (ahead of the originally planned end-date for the furlough scheme) – characterised by sharper increases in redundancies and unemployment – would seem to have abated, at least for the time being. According to the more volatile single-month figures, unemployment was actually higher in October than in December, while the latest real-time payrolls data suggest that employment actually notched marginally higher in both December and January.

• Obviously this doesn’t mean that the labour market is in good shape, not by far. The number of employees on the payroll remains down 700k compared to pre-pandemic and surveys suggest that 20% of the workforce – or around 6.4 million workers – were on furlough at the start of February. Even though the furlough scheme (currently due to expire at the end of April) is expected to be extended in the Budget next week, it seems inevitable that the unemployment rate will increase again this year as the wage support measures will eventually be tapered, at least partially. 

• On the labour demand side, vacancies continued to climb up after the a huge fall earlier in the pandemic, although at a slower pace in recent months. Their level, however, remains 26% below the pre-pandemic high.

• On the face of it, average earnings appear to be growing at a healthy clip (even after inflation), but unfortunately that’s largely driven by compositional effects: compared to one year ago, the average wage paid to workers currently employed is higher simply due to the fact that the bulk of the job losses have been registered in sectors with a higher prevalence of lower paid jobs, like hospitality. 

January 2021

Despite the introduction of a new national lockdown, the deterioration in the UK labour market slowed down in November thanks to the extension of the furlough scheme.

• The latest ONS data showed the UK labour market stabilising towards the end of 2020, with most of the quarterly increase in unemployment registered in September and October ahead of the originally planned end-date for the furlough scheme. Unemployment stayed fairly flat in November after the chancellor’s last-minute decision to extend the furlough scheme (currently set to end in April).

• The UK unemployment rate reached 5.0% in the three months to November 2020, for the first time since 2016 – While this is a significant jump, it should also be noted that unemployment remains only 1.2 pp higher than a year earlier, mainly thanks to the government's unprecedented wage support measures. The redundancy rate also dropped in November from its peak in September, although the quarterly rate of 14.2 per thousand remains a record high.

• Overall, employment has been holding up as well: the share of the working age population with a job was 75.2% in November, this is 1.1 pp lower than a year earlier (to put this into perspective, EU employment was down by 0.7 pp compared to pre-Covid).  While vacancies continued to increase in December, they registered the smallest gains since the summer, pointing to a slowdown in the UK hiring recovery as 2020 drew to a close.

• While the furlough scheme has been effective at holding back job losses, it has not been much help for those who may be looking for a job for the first time. 18 to 24-year-olds accounted for half the drop in employment since Covid hit the UK and continue to be the hardest hit group.

November 2020

The latest ONS numbers show that the UK labour market continued to weaken after the summer, with job losses and unemployment increasing at a much faster pace than before.   

• Redundancies have risen sharply recently, reaching an all-time record of around 315k in the three months to September, a 181K rise on the previous quarter. Over the same period, the unemployment rate significantly increased to 4.8% (a 0.7pp increase QoQ). 

• Today in the UK there are roughly a quarter of a million fewer employed workers than a year earlier. The employment rate has been decreasing since the start of the pandemic and it stood at 75.3% in the three months to September (a 0.6pp drop QoQ).  There’s also been a marked drop in the foreign-born workforce, with the number of EU nationals working in the UK down 364k compared to one year ago,

• This reflects a lack of hiring that has disproportionally impacted younger workers and, more broadly, people trying to enter the job market for the first time. People aged 16-24 are seeing some of the biggest falls in employment (down by around 300k since the start of the year, 174k QoQ) and they are also exposed to the highest risk of redundancy.

• Looking at the gender breakdown, men have been experiencing larger decreases in employment so far, and they have been faring worse than women more generally. While it may be too early to tell, there’s no evidence that women in the UK have been more likely to exit the labour force either (interestingly, this stands in contrast with what we’re seeing in the US).

• Despite the overall picture of a weakening labour market outlook, there are some positive trends we can call out this month: 

  • Vacancies increased once again in the three months to October, although their level remains below pre-Covid, particularly in some hardest hit sectors.

  • People who were furloughed/away from work have gradually returned to work over the summer and into autumn. The latest ONS business survey suggests that around 9% of the workforce remains furloughed (down from 30% in June). 

  • The return from furlough means hours worked are picking up again and this is boosting wages, which are now growing again after falling in previous months. 

August 2020

Today’s figures show hours worked free-falling and a marked uptick in the number of people who gave up looking for work (but might still want a job). As expected, we see little change in traditional labour market indicators (such as the employment and unemployment rate), mainly thanks to the furlough scheme that remains in place.  

As job losses and cuts to hours worked continue, we see no clear signs of a rebound in the UK labour market so far 

• The pace of the decline in the number of paid employees increased again with a 114K MoM drop in July (overall, it’s down 700K compared to March). Redundancies also increased by 27K QoQ in April-June. 

• Between Jan-Mar and Apr-Jun 2020, hours worked in the UK decreased by a record 18.4% – this is the largest quarterly decrease ever recorded. 

• The fall in hours worked implies that weekly wages are falling for many workers, even more so after taking inflation into account. 

• We have also seen an uptick in the number of people underemployed – those who want more hours of work.

• While LinkedIn’s latest data shows that hiring in the UK is improving, it is still well below pre-Covid levels.

• Even though overall levels remain low compared to pre-Covid, single-month data shows a timid rise in vacancies in July (also thanks to the reopening of sectors like hospitality), offering another small piece of good news.

July 2020

As unemployment remains at a low level, this morning’s ONS numbers continue to mask the level of distress the UK labour market is currently experiencing. The marked declines in pay growth and hours worked provide a better indication of the challenges UK workers have been facing in recent months. While some workers have lost their jobs, the biggest response of employers remains cutting hours rather than employment.

Headline unemployment numbers continue to mask the true extent of job losses

• Employment is weakening and unemployment is largely unchanged, while the number of people out of work not currently looking for work is rising.

• There are still a large number of people temporarily away from work, including furloughed workers.

• - Separate data on payrolls, shows that while the number of paid employees is still falling the decline is slowing. The largest falls were seen at the start of the pandemic.

• A sharp fall in pay growth reflects the wage cuts that are being felt by those on furlough, and the measures companies have been forced to introduce such as reducing hours and bonus payouts.

• While LinkedIn data shows that hiring has been gradually improving across most industries in the UK starting from mid-May, it remains well below last year’s levels.

May 2020

The latest labour market statistics released by the ONS remain mostly unaffected by the impact of coronavirus, as workers on furlough schemes are not counted as unemployed. Other more timely sources of data, however, suggest that hours worked, vacancies and hiring have been severely impacted. Despite the furlough scheme and other support measures implemented by the government, unemployment is expected to more than double and a be about 8% or more by June.   

Unemployment is rising rapidly

• The number of people claiming unemployment-related benefits rose by 60% (~850K) between March and April, reaching a level of over 2 million. 

• UK government’s Job Retention (furlough) Scheme is now paying the wages of 7.5 million workers, or around a quarter of total employees.

• Separate figures, based on data collected by HM Revenue & Customs, show that the number of employees on companies’ payrolls dropped by 457K between March and April (a 1.6% monthly drop). 

Initial evidence shows the impact of the lockdown on hours worked, vacancies and hiring

• Average working hours declined by 25% in March, due to people working fewer hours than usual because of economic reasons (including furloughed workers) and people temporarily away from work.

• Compared to the previous three months, vacancies decreased by 170K in February-April 2020. This is the largest quarterly decline on record in the number of vacancies (as estimated by the ONS).

• The LinkedIn Hiring Rate is not seeing the sharp declines registered in early- to mid-March, but it’s still declining by roughly 30-35% compared to the same time last year.

February 2020

2019 ended with a bang for the UK labour market. In Q4 employment reached yet another record high and wages (after inflation) finally surpassed their pre-crisis peak. While the labour market remains robust, economic growth looks weak with zero growth registered in the last three months of the year, despite reduced Brexit-related and political uncertainty.

The transformation of the women's labour market continues

• Women have been driving the growth in full-time employment in recent years. The employment rate for women increased by 0.6 percentage points in Q4 2019 to reach a record high of 72.4%.

• The unemployment rate for women (at 3.6%) was lower than that of men (at 3.9%).

• In addition, after trending down for most of 2019, vacancies ticket up by 7K between November and January.

A strong employment performance stands against a backdrop of weak GDP and slowing pay growth

• Real regular (weekly) pay increased by 1.8% to £474 in the 12 months to December 2019 –This was the first time that it exceeded the pre-downturn peak of £473 recorded in March 2008 (using CPIH to measure inflation, ONS’s preferred indicator). Had the pre-downturn pay growth trend continued, however, real pay would be £141 a week higher today.

• While the labour market remains robust, economic growth slowed in 2019 because of Brexit-related uncertainties and weak global growth.

• While some of the headwinds related to global growth have  recently receded – partly because of easing trade tensions between the US and China – uncertainty related to Brexit could increase again this year due to the possible introduction of tariffs along with other trade barriers and labour mobility restrictions after the transition period.

January 2020

Autumn 2019 brought a strong rebound in UK employment numbers, after a soft patch in the summer months. The strength in employment, however, is failing  to put further pressure on wage growth, which remains unchanged thanks to weaker inflation. 

Strong job growth is back

• Net job growth was a healthy +208K in the three months to November, the highest since January 2019. This jump was driven by a particularly strong increase in the month of October 2019.

• Even as the number of unemployed (mostly women) fell compared to the previous quarter, the unemployment rate remained flat.

• After steadily falling for the past six years, unemployment appears to have stabilized in recent periods. This, along with a much lower level of long-term unemployment (>12 months) today, suggests that unemployment has become less structural.

Stronger employment figures fail to feed into higher wages for UK workers

• Pay growth (ex. bonuses) slowed to 3.4% (down from 3.5% in the previous quarter) and real wage growth remained unchanged at 1.8%, only thanks to slower inflation.

• Softer economic activity along with slow productivity growth are likely to be behind weaker wages.

June 2021

After more modest gains in April, today’s report showed job growth accelerated in May with 559K jobs added. Industries gaining the most jobs reflect the re-opening in the economy - leisure & hospitality, education, and health care and social assistance.

Job recovery gains pace in May, but it fails to take off remaining below expectations

• Nonfarm employment increased by 559K, this is below the gains we saw in March, but almost double April’s figures. There was also a slight upward revision of 27K to the prior two months.  We’ve so far recouped two-thirds of the job losses from March/April 2020, equal to 14.7 million of the 22.4 million lost. 

• Unemployment fell to 5.8%, dropping below 6% for the first time since March 2020. This puts the unemployment rate on track to fall below 5% by the end of 2021. Overall labor force participation decreased slightly in May, but it remained flat for people of prime working-age (25-54). 

• More good news comes from what is considered the best “broad” measure of labor market health, the share of prime working-age (25-54) Americans with a job, which rose by 0.2 p.p. to 77.1%. This indicator has increased by 7.5 p.p. from the low registered in April 2020 (recouping 69.4% of its decline), but it remains 3.3 p.p. below its pre-pandemic level. 

• Despite coming slightly short of expectations, today’s report signals that the job recovery hasn’t stalled and that the sluggishness of hiring seen in April was just temporary. While it will certainly take some time for the labor market to fully recover, the risk of widespread labour shortages derailing the job recovery remains low for now. 

We expect more good news in the coming months 

• The current recovery has so far progressed faster than the prior one (2009-20) and stronger numbers are expected in the coming months, especially as schools, day care and elder care reopen allowing more parents and caregivers to return to the labor force. 

• It’s also good news that sectors that saw the steepest losses last year continue to record strong improvements, with leisure and hospitality gaining 292k in May on top of 328k in April, and 227k in March.

May 2021

April’s report defied expectations with a slowdown in job growth and rising unemployment. 

A disappointing weak report after solid gains in March: 

• Nonfarm employment increased only by 266K in April (much below expectations of 1 million). There were also net downward revisions of 78K to the two prior months (with March revised down by 146K).  We’ve so far recouped 14.2 million of the 22.4 million jobs lost in March/April.

• The unemployment rate increased by 0.1 percentage points to 6.1%, contrary to expectations. On an encouraging note, the rise in unemployment was driven by more people returning to look for a job. April saw a net increase in labor force participation of 430K (more than the M/M net employment increase of +328K). 

• More upbeat news comes from the share of prime working-age (25-54) Americans with a job, which rose by 0.1 percentage points to 76.9%. This indicator has increased by 7.3 percentage points from the low registered in April 2020, but it remains 3.5 pp below its pre-pandemic level. 

• Overall Labor Force Participation increased slightly more by 0.2 percentage points. It currently stands at 61.7% and it has recouped 48.4% of its March/April deterioration. This suggests that while the recovery has been pulling workers back into the labor force, it will take longer for this indicator to improve. 

• While we can’t infer too much from one month of data, today’s report is also a reminder that the recovery is not going to be linear or without hiccups, and it will take some time for the labor market to fully heal.

Are labor shortages holding back job growth? 

• It’s hard to tell just based on April’s data, but rising hours worked for production, retail and leisure and hospitality may be consistent with employers having trouble getting workers. Despite caveats about compositional issues, fast increases in leisure and hospitality wages would also seem to support this view. 

• On the other hand, a 430K net increase in labor force participation points to workers being drawn back to the labor force and goes against the labor shortages narrative. Data over the coming months should hopefully give us a clearer picture. 

What can we expect in the coming months? 

• Despite the disappointing report today, the current recovery has so far progressed faster than the prior one (2009-20), with the gains seen over the last year being equivalent to roughly six years of labor market gains post-2009. 

• With the vaccination moving rapidly and restrictions being relaxed, stronger numbers are expected in the coming months. The fact that leisure and hospitality –one of the sectors that saw the steepest losses last year–  accounted for the bulk of employment creation in April, adding 331K jobs, is encouraging news.  

November 2021

How does the labor market recovery in Europe compare to the US one ? Let's look at some relevant stats:

1. We don't see as many 'missing' workers or jobseekers in Europe compared to pre-pandemic, as we see in the US. The share people with a job or looking for one decreased significantly in 2020 both in the eurozone and in the US, but it recovered faster in mainland Europe.

• France did particularly well, going back to their pre-covid participation rate, while Spain also made significant improvements.

• The UK bucked the trend with a deterioration in labor force participation since 2020, but it's still doing better than the US.

2. European countries experienced much smaller falls in employment during 2020 (thanks to job retention schemes) and have generally been recovering at a roughly comparable speed to the US, with one exception.

• France is the only country where the share of working age people with a job is today *above* pre-pandemic levels.

• Other countries haven't done as well: The employment gap in Italy, Spain and the UK remains ~1.5pp, while it's ~1pp in Germany and ~2pp in the US.

3. Looking at people who lost their jobs, the story is similar. Thanks to furlough schemes, both eurozone and the UK registered a much smaller increase in unemployment in 2020 (compared to the US) and have since recovered some ground, but so has the US.

• Unemployment in France and Germany is virtually back to pre-covid levels today (and so it is in Italy, but for the wrong reasons as many more Italians left the labor force and haven't returned).

•  Spain and the UK are still recovering and trending towards their pre-covid levels of unemployment, with a gap to fill of 1pp and .5pp respectively. Unemployment in the US has been recovering as well, but it remains 1.5pp above pre-covid.

December 2020

EUROSTAT published the latest EU unemployment numbers today with data through October 2020. A few things to to point out:

• For starters, some sizable revisions were made to the figures for recent months, which reflect the unique challenges of collecting reliable statistics during a pandemic.

• The latest picture shows that the unemployment rate peaked in July (at 7.8%) before starting to slowly decrease since. The October figure for the EU is 7.6% (8.4% for the eurozone).

• While unemployment remained largely unchanged compared to September, its level is 1 p.p. above that of October 2019 (a 15% increase).

• Overall, the impact of the crisis on unemployment across the EU continues to appear limited so far, mainly thanks to the short-time work schemes that are still in place.

• As we head into 2021 with a prospect of imminent vaccine rollouts, it looks increasingly likely that EU unemployment may end up peaking at a lower level than the double-digit rates registered in the aftermath of the global financial crisis.

July 2020

As lockdowns and other curbs to economic activity were partially lifted, the pace of EU job losses slowed down in May and unemployment only marginally increased to 6.7%, up from 6.6% in April.

• Unemployment across the EU went up by 253k in May — this was less than two-thirds the increase seen in April. European employers avoided a much larger number of layoffs thanks to government-funded short-time work schemes that remain in place.

• Unemployment ticked up for 19 out of the 24 EU countries for which data was released. France, Spain and Portugal reported falls in their jobless rates in May, while Italy registered the sharpest relative increase. This was mainly due to a surge in the number of people in Italy who started to look for work after strict lockdown measures were partially lifted and thus were counted as “unemployed” in May.

• Despite the marginal increase in unemployment, EU governments are still paying (part of) the wage of an exceptionally high number of workers.

• Job losses mostly affected women and young people. Unemployment for women increased, but remained stable for men, while the EU youth unemployment rate rose from 15.4% April to 15.7% in May.

June 2020

The April unemployment numbers published by Eurostat today suggest that the short-time and furlough schemes introduced by governments have been effective, in the short term, at shielding the EU labour market from the impact of lockdowns and at masking the true extent of job losses. This also puts the EU experience in stark contrast with the steep surge in unemployment registered in the US.

• Unemployment in the EU slightly increased to 6.6% in April (up from 6.4% in March). Among the larger member countries, only France and Sweden saw increases bigger than 1pp.

• Quite exceptional is the second consecutive drop in unemployment (which decreased by 1.7 pp to 6.3% in April) experienced by Italy. This was caused by a marked increase in the number of inactive people (+746k MoM), as Italian workers under a strict lockdown gave up looking for jobs in record numbers.

• Young people continue to be particularly exposed to the negative labour market impact of COVID-19: EU youth unemployment rate went up to 15.4% in April (up from 14.6% in March).

(Full release: https://lnkd.in/ghf-bsA)

May 2020

Latest Eurostat unemployment numbers for March are out. As most lockdown measures were implemented by EU countries around the middle of the month, an increase in unemployment is clearly visible in the data, but the impact of coronavirus still appears limited.

• Unemployment rate in the eurozone ticked up to 7.4% from 7.3% in February – this is an increase of +197k unemployed people over one month. Spain, Ireland and France registered some of the largest increases.

• Younger workers were hit harder with EZ youth unemployment going up to 15.8% in March (from 15.4% one month before). This group is likely to be particularly vulnerable to the impact of COVID-19 on the labour market, as entry-level jobs dry up at a faster pace than others and layoffs become more common.

• LinkedIn Hiring Rate trends are pointing to a significant slowdown in hiring over the last few weeks, which means that unemployment is likely to see a much bigger jump in April due to a plunge in the number of people entering work.

(Release: https://lnkd.in/epGdmvM)

November 2021

Latest data released by ISTAT shows that despite upbeat GDP growth, the Italian labor market showed only modest gains in Q3:

- We saw a 81K increase in employment driven by an increase in (mostly male) employees (self-employment was down 44K Q/Q).

- The share of employed working-age people increased by 0.2 pp and it's now only 0.4 pp below its pre-pandemic Feb 2020 level, which also means it has recouped about 80% of the fall registered as a consequence of the Covid shock.

- To put this into perspective –although the fall in employment registered post-2008 in Italy was about twice as large as the one we saw in 2020-21– back then it took about 5 years for the labor market to recoup 80% of the fall in employment, while it only took 15 months this time.

Gennaio 2020

Diffusi stamattina i dati più recenti dell'Osservatorio sul Precariato INPS. I contratti a tempo indeterminato continuano a crescere a Novembre 2019, ma rallentano rispetto a Novembre 2018 (2.5K trasformazioni e 15K avviamenti in meno). 

Più in generale, si conferma un rallentamento nella crescita del mercato del lavoro italiano nei primi 11 mesi del 2019, dovuto principalmente ad un'inversione di trend dei contratti a termine che hanno smesso di crescere (al netto della cessazioni) a partire da Gennaio 2019. Anche se positiva, la differenza tra assunzioni e cessazioni nei dodici mesi fino a Novembre 2019 (pari a +176K) è meno della metà di quella registrata alla fine di Novembre 2018 (+368K). 

In sintesi, se da un lato cresce il numero degli italiani con un contratto indeterminato, dall'altro rallenta la crescita la crescita nel numero degli occupati. 

(Rapporto INPS).