The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is responsible for getting people into work and making work pay. DWP want everyone who can work to be able to find a job, progress in work, and thrive in the labour market, whoever they are and wherever they live.

To do this, the Department delivers comprehensive employment support to help people start, stay, and succeed in work, including face-to-face time with work coaches in our Jobcentres and via contracted employment support programmes.

COVID-19 represented an unprecedented challenge for the country and Government.

With the expectation that many people would become unemployed, the Government mobilised rapidly to provide historic levels of support to the economy and the labour market. This included launching the Plan for Jobs which involved the expansion of existing DWP programmes and the creation of new ones, such as Restart and Kickstart.

The labour market has recovered well and remains robust and resilient with a low unemployment rate of 4.3%. However, following the pandemic, we have seen a rise in the number of people who are economically inactive, now at 8.78m.

DWP are pleased to have made progress, with economic inactivity falling by over 300,000 since the post-pandemic peak. However, this group still includes millions of people who could work, who want to work and who represent a wealth of untapped talent for business. This is why the Government announced a new package of support at Spring Budget aimed at increasing workforce participation, in addition to our existing range of employment support. This includes investment to support disabled people and those with long-term health conditions, parents, over 50s, unemployed people and people on Universal Credit who are working fewer than full-time hours.

The Government responses to the Committee’s recommendations are set out below under the report’s three categories:

1. Economic inactivity and supporting labour market engagement
2. Employment support services and getting people into work
3. Transforming support.

Read more here.

This new report from the Work Foundation reveals the regions with the highest and lowest levels of ‘severely insecure’ work (employment that is involuntarily temporary or part-time, or when multiple forms of insecurity come together, such as casual or zero-hours contracts, or low or unpredictable pay).

The study focuses on the nine Mayoral Combined Authorities and Greater London, where over a third of England’s workforce – 11 million workers – live. Of these workers, 2.2 million (19.4%) are in severely insecure work.

Key Findings

• The Work Foundation’s UK Insecure Work Index 2022 found, jobs in the private sector are more likely to be severely insecure than jobs in the public sector.

• Sectors such as hospitality, accommodation, and food services are more likely than others to see a high prevalence of involuntary part-time and temporary work, with low and unpredictable pay.

• Professional and managerial jobs tend to be quite secure, whereas insecure work is often concentrated among self-employed workers and those in routine and semi-routine jobs, such as cashiers, fitness instructors, and salespersons.
• Routine and semi-routine jobs, have a difference in the level of insecurity experienced across the country.

Report Recommendations

➢ The Government should:

• Introduce a comprehensive Employment Bill in the next parliament that puts job quality and security at the centre of labour market regulation.

➢ The Department for Business and Trade should:

• Adapt the right to request predictable working patterns to start from day one on the job and narrow the reasons employers may give for refusal.

➢DWP should:

• Reduce the waiting times for Statutory Sick Pay from four days to zero days.
• Raise the rate of Statutory Sick Pay to 60% of usual wages, or the equivalent of the National Minimum Wage pro-rated by the usual number of hours worked, whichever is higher.
• Self-employed workers without staff and gig-workers, establish insurance for income protection, which workers would pay into, and would be able to access in times of illness or short-term unemployment.

Read more here.

£89 million of funding has been awarded to 20 cutting edge net zero tech projects, reinforcing the UK as a world leader in zero emissions vehicle technology.

Read more here.

Edinburgh has been selected to host a next-gen supercomputer fuelling economic growth, building on the success of a Bristol-based AI supercomputer, creating high-skilled jobs.

The city has been named as the preferred choice to host the new national exascale facility, as the UK government continues to invest in the country’s world-leading computing capacity – crucial to the running of modern economies and cutting-edge scientific research.

Exascale is the next frontier in computing power, where systems are built to carry out extremely complex functions with increased speed and precision. This in turn enables researchers to accelerate their work into some of the most pressing challenges we face, including the development of new drugs, and advances in nuclear fusion to produce potentially limitless clean low-carbon energy.

Read more here.

DWP is carrying out a large-scale recruitment exercise for Universal Credit Review Agents and Work Coaches. The recruitment will take place in phases over the coming months, targeting a range of geographical areas at different times.

The link to the Stakeholder toolkit has more information about the recruitment and how to download social media files to help publicise the opportunities available.

Read more here.

Amid low growth and high inflation, unemployment is rising and there is concern that continued high interest rates might cause trouble for households with debt.

With the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement on the horizon, the UK economy continues to face challenges.

Unemployment is rising (though so are wages), economic growth is sluggish, and inflation has been slow to fall, which means interest rates aren’t expected to fall any time soon. This doesn’t give the Chancellor much room to increase spending or cut taxes next month.

Since the end of coronavirus lockdowns, the labour market has been tight: unemployment has been low and job vacancies have been high, making finding a job easier and recruitment more difficult.

More recently, however, the labour market has loosened. Though labour market data for June to August was less reliable than usual, it showed a continuation of recent trends: there was a rise in both unemployment and economic inactivity, and a fall in employment.

The unemployment rate was 4.2% in June to August, up from 3.5% the year before.

The Office for Budget Responsibility will publish fresh forecasts alongside the Autumn Statement on 22 November, but the latest forecasts from the Bank of England predicted an unemployment rate of 4.5% at the end of 2024 and 4.8% at the end of 2025.

Read more here.

Care leavers are young people aged over 16 leaving local authority care.

According to the Department for Education, in 2021/22 there were 45,940 care leavers in England now aged 17 to 21.

The Department for Education’s Keep on Caring policy paper (2016) said care leavers generally experience worse outcomes than their peers across a number of areas.

The National Audit Office’s report, Care leavers’ transition to adulthood (2015), identified poorer life outcomes for care leavers as a “longstanding problem” with a likely high public cost, including in mental health, employment, education, policing and justice services.

This briefing covers the UK Government’s policies to support care leavers in key areas. It primarily focuses on England but includes some information on devolved policies.

Read more here.

In June to August 2023, the number of people aged 16+ in employment was 32.97 million, and the employment rate for people aged 16-64 was 75.7%, down from 76.0% in the previous quarter.

Note only experimental headline data this month.

Employment levels decreased by 82,000 in the last quarter but increased by 216,000 over the last year. They were slightly above pre-pandemic levels.

The UK unemployment rate was 4.2%, and 1.44 million people aged 16+ were unemployed.

Unemployment levels rose in the last quarter and the last year and were 69,000 above pre-pandemic levels.

8.73 million people aged 16-64 were economically inactive, and the inactivity rate was 20.9%. Inactivity levels rose by 74,000 from the previous quarter but fell by 274,000 in the last year. They were 279,000 above their pre-pandemic level.

The number of vacancies fell in the last quarter and over the year to 988,000 in July to September 2023, but remain 187,000 above pre-pandemic levels.

Read more here.

There was an increase in youth unemployment in the latest quarter with a fall in employment. The number of young people who were economically inactive also increased.

There were 527,000 young people aged 16 to 24 who were unemployed in June to August 2023, an increase of 45,000 from the previous quarter and an increase of 155,000 from a year before.

The unemployment rate (the proportion of the economically active population who are unemployed) for 16- to 24-year-olds was 12.5%. This is up from 11.4% in the previous quarter and from 9.0% from the year before.

The number who are economically inactive (not in or looking for work) increased by 30,000 compared to the previous quarter, though fell by 91,000 compared to the previous year.

The inactivity rate for young people was 38.4%, up from 38.2% in the previous quarter.

Read more here.

New research released recently reveals that the younger generation do not feel able to chase their dream jobs, citing a lack of opportunity (36%) as the number one obstacle.

Other factors that are holding young people from having a dream job are money (35%), lack of self-confidence (32%), lack of experience (33%) and the increased cost of living (30%).

Overall, the younger generation is only planning for the short term, against the backdrop of economic uncertainty.

Sixty per cent of young people say they need to prioritise any job over their dream job now, and 40 per cent have changed their career plans in the past year.

More than half (57%) say they have lowered their long-term aspirations over the past two years, suggesting young people are having to become more pragmatic in what they prioritise when it comes to their working lives.

The cost of living (57%), the UK economy (44%) and their mental health (39%) are cited as having the biggest impact on young people’s futures.

Half of those surveyed say they are not planning beyond the next six months. When asked about their long-term life goals, maintaining good physical and mental health, and living happily were amongst the top answers.

Read more here.