LONDON, March 15 (Xinhua) -- The labor market in Britain is on the path to recovery as the employment rate is rising and the number of jobless people is on the decrease, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said on Tuesday.
Between November 2021 and January 2022, the country's unemployment rate was estimated at 3.9 percent, down from 4.1 percent in the previous three-month period and returning to pre-pandemic levels (December 2019 to February 2020), the ONS said.
In the same period, the employment rate stood at 75.6 percent, 0.1 percentage point above that in the previous three-month period but one percentage point lower than before the pandemic.
Full-time employees drove the increase in the employment rate, the ONS said, noting that in February the number of payrolled employees increased by 275,000 month-on-month to a record 29.7 million.
Still, labor shortages continue to persist.
The number of job vacancies in the three months ending in February hit a fresh record of 1,318,000, an increase of 105,000 from the previous quarter. Half of the industry sectors reported new highs, the ONS said.
The economic inactivity rate, which is the proportion of people aged between 16 and 64 years who are not in the labor force, increased by 0.1 percentage point to 21.3 percent in the three-month period and was 1.1 percentage points higher than before the pandemic.
"The number of people out of work and not looking for a job rose again, meaning total employment remained well below its pre-pandemic level," ONS chief economist Grant Fitzner said.
"We have seen yet another record number of job vacancies, and with the redundancy rate falling to a new record low, demand for workers remains strong."
The ONS pointed out that the recent increase in the economic inactivity rate was driven by people in the 50-64 age group who left the labor market.
Tony Wilson, director of the Institute for Employment Studies, warned that "Don't be fooled by falling unemployment. It is masking continued falls in labor force participation, with older people leading the exodus."
"Very worrying, again," said Wilson, pointing out that a 550,000 increase in "inactivity" among people older than 50 in the past two years was the largest rise in at least three decades. ■