Latest ONS data on employment (Apr-June 2020)

We analyse the latest ONS data on the changes to the labour market for the April to June period (with experimental statistics for July) from a gender perspective.

Read our short note on what has changed in terms of employment for women and men.

What the data shows:

• Record fall in part-time women employees (-3.6%) and in full-time self-employed men (-4%)
• But record increase in full-time employees (2%) and in zero-hour contracts (17.4%) (95% of new zero-hour contracts are men, although women are still majority of those on zero-hour contracts)
• 5.5 million people temporarily away from work, half a million not being paid (this seems to be a glitch in the Labour Force Survey, used for ONS headline figures, which asks people about their employment situation – some might expect their job to still be there, even though not on CJRS)
• Younger and older workers driving decreases in employment (reflects impact on hospitality etc, sectors with a heavy concentration of young workers)
• Employment scenario very different across industries and public-private sectors (public sector at record high, while sectors like construction, hospitality with decreased levels of employment)
• ‘Economically inactive’ increase driven by those who want work in future but not looking now (people seem to be temporarily discouraged from looking for a job, but might do soon)
• Largest decrease ever in weekly hours worked (similar impact on women and men) (continuing trend and a reflection of the magnitude of the furlough scheme)
• Pay growth is now negative but recovered in June according to early estimates (pay growth is now officially negative, that is, growing slower than inflation)