Job vacancies fall to lowest levels since post-pandemic, figures show

Data, from the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) and Lightcast, shows there were 1.45 million active job adverts in the UK in the week of the 19-25 September, which is still a high level relative to levels seen pre-pandemic.

Last week, 143,000 new job advertisements were posted, the lowest figure this year and an 8.3% drop from the month before.

Neil Carberry, Chief Executive of the REC, said that while employer demand is still high, a cooling-off on the job market is “no surprise”.

“With inflation high, and employers concerned about the economic picture, some moderation in hiring from the sugar rush of the past year was predictable,” he said.

"That said, we are entering a new phase in our labour market. Workforce shortages make the impact of a slowdown on hiring much more unpredictable. It is far less likely that we will see much higher candidate availability, especially for roles requiring key skills, even if the economy slows.”

Carberry said that changes to IR35 rules, announced by the Chancellor last week, will help the slowing recruitment market.

The new rules mean that workers providing services via an intermediary, will again be responsible for determining their employment status and paying the correct amount of tax.

Kwasi Kwarteng said the reforms will free up time and money for businesses and will reduce complexity within the UK tax system.

“Changes to IR35 rules announced last week will help with bringing more labour on stream – but Government also needs to address the other key elements of making the UK a great place to invest and create jobs. That includes skills reform, and stability in the fiscal and monetary outlook.”

The research, which looked at job posting data from between 12 and 25 September, showed that increases in jobs in the education sector as the school year kicks off. Job for school secretaries went up by 8.8%, teaching professional roles went up by 6.4% and secondary school teacher jobs went up by 4%.

The biggest weekly decline in active job adverts was postings for driving instructors (-15.5%), followed by ship and hovercraft officers (-12.0%), and Floorers and wall tilers (-11.3%).

The local area with the highest increase in job adverts was Southampton (+6.6%), followed by West Cumbria (+6.4%) and Telford and Wrekin (+5.3%).

The bottom ten local areas for growth in active job postings were in Northern Ireland.

It comes after figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) earlier this month showed that unemployment fell in the three months to July to the lowest rate since July 1974.

The indication of strength in the job market will provide some encouragement for people, particularly with rising living costs and a recession looming.

However, the employment rate and number of vacancies also fell, the figures showed, suggesting that the post-lockdown boom is coming to an end.

The boss of Reed Recruitment said at the time: “The jobs boom that began six months after the pandemic is probably coming to an end now.”

He told the BBC’s Today programme, James Reed, who chairs the recruitment business, said: “There are still very large numbers of vacancies and people are still advertising a lot of jobs, and that’s why we’ve seen unemployment continue to go down.

“The question is, what happens next? Will there be a jobs slump? That’s a concern clearly but our data at the moment doesn’t suggest that, because we’ve still got a large number of vacancies and a lot of employers are still struggling to recruit.”