Charlie Ball provides his regular update on the graduate labour market - summarising the key highlights from the week's news, data and research
Welcome to the next instalment of our round-up of the week's UK's graduate labour market developments, brought to you by Prospects Luminate at Jisc.
GDP fell by 2.6% in November 2020 as government restrictions reduced economic activity. This put it 8.5% below the levels seen in February 2020
- The services sector fell by 3.4% as restrictions on activity were reintroduced in some parts of the UK in response to the) pandemic. The services sector is now 9.9% below the level of February 2020.
- There were falls in output in all 14 services sub-sectors between October and November 2020. The largest contributor to this fall was accommodation and food service activities, followed by wholesale and retail trade, other service activities and arts, entertainment and recreation. These four sectors accounted for nearly 80% of the fall in services.
- The production sector also fell marginally by 0.1% in November 2020, remaining 4.7% below the February 2020 level.
- The construction sector saw positive growth of 1.9% in November 2020, recovering to 0.6% above the February 2020 level.
The latest update on the effects of COVID-19 on the UK economy from the ONS was released on 14 January - covering the period of the imposition of the new lockdown.
- 14% of the workforce is currently furloughed.
- 51% of the workforce was working at their normal place of work.
- 34% of the workforce worked exclusively from home.
- Job ads were running at 72% of their level a year ago, and the week saw a decline in all sectors and all regions of the UK.
Across all the towns and cities covered by KPMG analysis, there could be nearly 400,000 job losses on the high street.
The ONS also published their fortnightly look at the business impact of the COVID pandemic. This is based on responses from the voluntary fortnightly business survey (BICS) about financial performance, workforce, prices, trade, and business resilience.
- 71% of businesses were trading between 29 December 2020 and 10 January 2021. The previous fortnight 84% of businesses were trading.
- 37% of businesses were currently trading in the accommodation and food service activities industry. 49% of businesses in the arts and entertainment industry were trading.
- 10.5% of businesses in the real estate industry have gone out of business since the start of the pandemic.
- A third of businesses in the accommodation and food service activities industry and the other service activities industry had no or low confidence that they would survive the next three months. Over half have less than three months cash reserves.
- Overall 14.7% of UK businesses have low or no confidence of surviving the next three months.
- In the reporting period, 32% of the workforce were working virtually (as data above shows this figure is rising). 78% of workers in IT and telecoms and 69% of professional scientific and technical workers are working virtually.
- 25% of businesses that have traded internationally in the last 12 months, and for whom imports or exports have been different to normal expectations, reported that the disruption at the UK borders affected their ability to import goods and services and 18% reported it had affected their ability to export.
REC and EMSI have released their latest Jobs Recovery Tracker. In December 2020 there were around 1.77 million active job adverts in the UK, an increase of 10.5% on the previous year.
Pent-up demand for staff, and an increase in the amount of time that employers are leaving job adverts open for, meant that the total number of job postings was notably higher than before COVID-19 hit the UK.
Graduate roles on the rise included:
- nurses (+62.7%)
- care workers (+25.8%)
- radiographers (+71.3%).
There were also more adverts for environmental health professionals (+92.7%) as businesses and workplaces must comply with strict social distancing guidelines in order to stay open.
The number of postings for vets was more than double (+108.4%) what it was a year ago, perhaps due to potential changes in changes in food safety and animal welfare standards due to Brexit, and the number of people in the profession who come to the UK from the EU.
Most of these roles (with the exception of environmental health) already featured as amongst the hardest for employers to fill pre-COVID.
Skilled trades such as bricklayers (+92.9%), glaziers (+71.6%) and carpenters (+41.5%) also saw higher numbers of job adverts as construction sites remained open.
Among the occupations with the biggest drops in job posting numbers compared to the previous year were bar staff (-69.9%), travel agents (-58.9%), chefs (-58.2%), beauticians (-52.9%) and sports and leisure assistants (-49.8%).
The Migration Observatory at Oxford have published an overview of migrant workers in the UK.
- About 16% of people employed in the UK in in the third quarter (July-September) of 2020 were born abroad.
- Migrant men are more likely to be employed than UK-born men (84% vs 79% in 2019). However, among women, migrants are less likely to be in work (67% vs 73%).
- Unemployment rates for both migrants and the UK born fell steadily from 2012 to 2019, but the unemployment rate increased sharply among migrants during Q2 and Q3 of 2020.
- Compared to the UK born, migrants are more likely to work in jobs for which they are overqualified, especially if they have foreign qualifications, but there was no difference in the rates for UK and EU-14 born employees.
- Indian- and EU-14 born full-time employees had the highest median earnings at £33,200 per year compared to £28,000 of the UK born.
In a similar vein, the Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence (ESCOE) has examined Labour Force Survey data to look at population change in the UK during the pandemic. ESCOE use a new weighting method to estimate that:
- the total population may have fallen by more than 1.3 million
- the number of non-UK born workers resident in the UK could have fallen by more than half a million
- the resident population of London might have fallen by nearly 700,000 UK employment may have fallen by around 750,000.
ESCOE stress that these statistics are illustrative and highly experimental but that the pandemic has put considerable strains on traditional methodologies and population changes could be quite significant. It looks as if there may be further developments here so we will keep an eye on it.
KPMG have published a new report on the future for UK towns and cities post-pandemic. The chief interest here is some very interesting and detailed data by city on the proportion of jobs likely to remain virtual and the number and proportion of retail job losses anticipated.
The loss of commuter flow could range from over a tenth to under a third of commuter footfall pre-COVID, with Hemel Hempstead and Bracknell set to see up to 27.4% of office work performed from home.
Across all the towns and cities covered by KPMG analysis, there could be nearly 400,000 job losses on the high street. Basingstoke, Bracknell, Guildford and Exeter appear to be the worst affected, with up to 39% of retail jobs vulnerable in the shift towards online sales.
71% of working mothers who have applied for furlough following the latest school closures have had their requests turned down.
The TUC published the results of a survey on the challenges of managing work and childcare during lockdown.
- 71% of working mothers who have applied for furlough following the latest school closures have had their requests turned down.
- 78% hadn't been offered furlough by their employers.
- 90% of those who replied said that their anxiety and stress levels had increased during this latest lockdown.
- 48% were worried about being treated negatively by their employers because of their childcare responsibilities.
- 25% of mothers were using annual leave to manage their childcare.
- 18% had been forced to reduce their working hours.
- 7% were taking unpaid leave from work and receiving no income.
There is news from the EU as the monthly European Labour Market Barometer reports for December.
- European Labour Market Barometer rose by 0.5 points in December concluding the year at 98.9 points.
- This suggests a likely moderate, negative development of the European labour market in the coming months.
- Seasonally-adjusted unemployment in Europe is likely only to increase slightly.
The International Labour Organisation (ILO) have produced a mammoth report on homeworking around the world. The main report runs to 279 pages and even the executive summary is eight pages long so this is not an easy one to summarise.
- In low- and middle-income countries for instance, almost all home-based workers (90%) work informally.
- Homeworkers earn on average 13% less in the United Kingdom; 22% less in the United States of America; 25% less in South Africa and about 50% in Argentina, India and Mexico.
- Homeworkers also face greater safety and health risks and have less access to training than non-home-based workers, which can affect their career prospects.
- For home-based, digital platform workers, whose activities raise particular challenges for compliance as they cross multiple borders, the report advocates the use of data generated by their work to monitor working conditions and tools to set fair wages.
- For teleworkers, the report calls on policymakers to put in place specific actions to mitigate psychosocial risks and introduce a 'right to disconnect', to ensure respect for the boundaries between working life and private life.
Finally, the Institute of Fiscal Studies have examined the take-up of A-level economics.
- Among those studying economics, 69% held an Economics A-level.
- No UK university requires prospective students to have taken the qualification and there is no difference in university performance between those that have and haven't taken it after accounting for other student characteristics.
- As of 2017, half of comprehensive schools offered economics at A-level, compared with 77% of independent schools and 83% of grammar schools.
- More than 7% of undergraduate boys from private schools were studying economics in 2018/19, compared with less than 1% of girls from state schools.
- 23% of boys at UK universities who took A-level economics also study it at degree level, with very little difference between state and private school students.
- 16% undergraduate girls with an economics A-level study economics at university. Again, there is little difference between private and state school girls on this margin.
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