Vacancies up from this time last year, government says

Anna Scott

Further signs of jobs growth have emerged over the last three months, according to the latest employment figures from the Office for National Statistics.

There are more than half a million job vacancies currently in the UK economy, an increase of 62,000 over the last year.

The number of adults in work has also risen by 378,000 since this time last year to 29.95 million, and there are now 48,000 fewer people unemployed than there were three months ago.

More than 71% of those aged 16 to 64 are now employed, a 0.3 percentage point rise over the last three months. Unemployment of the economically active population was down 0.2 percentage points to 7.6%.

The annual rise in employment was dominated by more people in full-time, permanent jobs, according to the Department for Work and Pensions.

The north east region is seeing the least improvement with an employment rate of 67.3% and an unemployment rate of 10.2%. This compares with the highest employment rate of 76.2% in the south east, and the lowest in the east of England at 5.8%.

Minister for employment Esther McVey said the government was delivering on its promise to rebalance the economy and promote job creation.

“Today’s figures show that the number of people in work has risen by more than a million under this government, with the growth driven by full-time private sector jobs,” she said.

“There’s more work to do, and we are not complacent, but these are all very positive signs.”