UK Job Report (October 2015) – The employment rate has reached a record high

• There were 31.30 million people in work, 207,000 more than for May to July 2015 and 505,000 more than for a year earlier.
• There were 22.88 million people working full-time, 338,000 more than for a year earlier. There were 8.42 million people working part-time, 167,000 more than for a year earlier.
• The employment rate (the proportion of people aged from 16 to 64 who were in work) was 73.9%, the highest since comparable records began in 1971.
• There were 1.71 million unemployed people (people not in work but seeking and available to work), 110,000 fewer than for May to July 2015 and 244,000 fewer than for a year earlier.
• There were 939,000 unemployed men, 153,000 fewer than for a year earlier. There were 774,000 unemployed women, 91,000 fewer than for a year earlier.
• The unemployment rate was 5.2%, lower than for a year earlier (6.0%). It has not been lower since the 3 months to January 2006. The unemployment rate is the proportion of the labour force (those in work plus those unemployed) that were unemployed.

Figure 1.1 shows the employment rate for people aged from 16 to 64 since comparable records began in 1971. The lowest employment rate was 65.6% in 1983, during the economic downturn of the early 1980s. The employment rate has been generally increasing since early 2012 and for the latest time period, August to October 2015, it reached a record high of 73.9%.

Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story at  UK Labour Market, December 2015 – ONS