WIREDGOV

Associate Research Director Dr Heather Rolfe said: “With a fall in unemployment to a record low of 4.6% and the rate of employment at a record high of almost 75%, the latest ONS Labour Market statistics suggest that employers are facing increasing difficulty sourcing the labour they need. Of the current 777,000 vacancies in the UK jobs market, 85% are in services, including health and social work. These vacancies have implications for the quality of services.”

She added: “The statistics show that EU workers are continuing to meet employers’ needs yet, with the fall in the value of sterling and uncertainty around future rights to work in the UK, this may not continue”.

She concluded:  “The government would be wise to guarantee the future right to remain for existing EU citizens in the UK and also to ensure that employers can continue to address labour shortages through migration, where their needs cannot be met locally’.

Notes for editors:

For further reading on NIESR’s research on the impact of Brexit on employers see here.

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Paola Buonadonna on 020 7654 1923 / p.buonadonna@niesr.ac.uk   

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