The Labour Market Story: The UK Following Recession

1 Briefing PaperJuly 2014 The Labour Market story : the uk Following RecessionThe Labour Market story : the uk Following Recession The Labour Market story : the uk Following RecessionBriefing Paper July 2014 The Labour Market story : the uk Following Recession Table of Contents Executive Summary .. v 1 the uk economy: Recession , recovery and potential .. 1 Recession and recovery .. 1 Productivity .. 6 Competitiveness .. 8 Industry sectors .. 12 Spatial variation in economic performance .. 15 2 The Labour Market .. 19 Unemployment and job creation .. 19 Employment: a range of experiences .. 23 Changing employment practices .. 27 Migration and the Labour Market .. 28 Labour markets across nations and regions .. 29 Matching skills to needs.

2 31 3 Skills, pay, and mobility .. 36 The link between skills and employment and earnings outcomes .. 36 Earnings and living standards .. 37 Occupational change and job prospects .. 39 Inequalities in the Labour Market .. 41 4 Skills and policy: challenges and possibilities .. 42 Skills and economic growth .. 42 The state of the Labour Market .. 43 Policy challenges .. 44 Bibliography .. 47 iii The Labour Market story : the uk Following Recession Tables and figures Figure UK GDP growth and economic sentiment, 2000-2013 .. 2 Figure UK macroeconomic performance since 2006 Q1 .. 4 Figure Change in output and unemployment across advanced economies, 2007-2013 .. 4 Figure Output growth and unemployment across advanced economies, 5 Figure GDP per hour worked, 2000-2012, selected advanced economies (2007=100).

3 7 Figure Workforce qualification levels, % economically active, 2004-2013 .. 10 Table Global Competitiveness Index 2013-2014 rankings .. 11 Table Growing and contracting industry sectors, 2002-2012 .. 13 Figure Output per hour worked, by sector, 2005-2013 .. 14 Figure Output per head and employment rate across nations and regions, 16 Figure Change in output and employment across LEP areas, 2007-2012 .. 17 Figure Output and employment in three UK recessions .. 20 Figure UK Beveridge Curve 2001-2014 .. 21 Figure Change in employment and unemployment, by age group, 2007-2013 .. 25 Figure Youth unemployment and earning while learning, EU member states, 2012 .. 26 Figure Unemployment by duration, 16-64 .. 26 Figure Temporary employees, 1997 to 2013 quarterly, 000s employees.

4 28 Figure Workforce with no qualifications and change in unemployment, 2007-2013 .. 30 Figure Vacancies and unemployed by industry, before, during, after Recession .. 34 Figure Growth in average real wages, 2001-2013 .. 38 Figure Past and future net change in SOC2010 Major Groups .. 40 The Labour Market story is based on research undertaken by the Institute of Employment Studies, the Warwick Institute for Employment Research, Cambridge Econometrics and UKCES. We would also like to acknowledge the assistance of expert reviewers who provided comments on early drafts. iv The Labour Market story : the uk Following Recession Executive Summary the uk economy is now returning to sustained recovery, but there is somedistance to make up after a sharp Recession and a delayed return to those tough times, the rise in UK unemployment Following Recession wassmaller and less sustained than previous experience would suggest, andunemployment is now falling rapidly as the economy grows.

5 The most troubling aspect of the period since the onset of Recession is the fall inlabour productivity, and its subsequent weakness. This has applied acrossindustries and seems to result from a combination of factors, including problemsof mismatch between skills supplied and demanded in the Labour Market . While the rise in unemployment was smaller than expected, it was still substantial,and hit hardest upon those at the margins. But other problems have longer termorigins, including the decline in youth employment, rising underemployment interms of skills, and a falling number of jobs in traditional middle-skill occupations. All regions and nations within the uk have been affected by Recession , but therehas been some variation, typically strengthening existing differences.

6 On the otherhand, looking at local level within England, the experiences of different types ofarea suggests traditional north-south narratives are far from the whole story . The marked decline in real pay since the onset of Recession (and its priorstagnation, on some measures) is linked to the drop in Labour factors such as non-wage costs of employment, and a rise in inequalitywithin wages, also play a part. Evidence through the Recession continues to show that those with higher skillsand qualifications are more likely to stay employed and have substantially higherearnings prospects. Policy can help by shaping education, training and employment institutions andpractices to ensure that they adapt to changing Market conditions and businessneeds.

7 Arguably, policy based on government pushing skills to employers hasnot been successful. Effective policy depends on employers participation indesigning, implementing and engaging with the The Labour Market story : the uk Following Recession 1 the uk economy: Recession , recovery and potential The Recession of 2008 and 2009 brought to an end the longest period of sustained, stable economic growth the uk has known with one of its sharpest contractions. Years of continued progress in closing the longstanding gap in productivity with leading advanced economies such as the US and Germany saw significant reverses. Recovery has taken longer than before, not helped by severe problems in the Eurozone, one of the uk s largest export markets.

8 While employment fared better than historic and international experience would have suggested, productivity has struggled to recover as the Recession and its aftermath cast a harsh light on the weak points in the uk economy. Recession and recovery From the end of the early 1990s Recession until 2008, the British economy experienced a continued expansion in output, alongside low and stable inflation and high and growing employment. Improved macroeconomic stability and increased Market flexibility, combined with greater opportunities in a growing global economy, created benign conditions for growth. During the 2000s, a combination of structural weakness, commodity price shocks, and the arrival of a global financial crisis in 2007-08 contributed to falling business and consumer confidence, and an extremely sharp Recession during 2008 and 2009 (Figure ).

9 1 The Labour Market story : the uk Following Recession Figure UK GDP growth and economic sentiment, 2000-2013 Source: ONS GDP at constant prices, SA, and European Commission ECOFIN Economic Sentiment Indicator the uk s high profile in financial services, and close proximity to the particularly troubled Eurozone export markets contributed not only to the depth of the Recession but also a weak recovery. As a consequence, at the time of writing, UK output remains below its pre- Recession peak. The particular set of circumstances driving the deep Recession and relatively weak recovery (compared to previous recessions ) show through in the macroeconomic indicators (Figure ). Clearly, the fall in confidence led to sharp cutbacks in household consumer expenditure and businesses investment plans.

10 In particular, business investment has remained stalled around the lower levels seen early in the Recession , some 20 per cent below the pre- Recession peak of Meanwhile, while exports have recovered from the depths, after more than a 10 per cent fall during the Recession , problems in key export markets including the Eurozone have restrained their role in powering further recovery. Also hinted at is one of the less expected features of Recession and recovery that the demand for Labour did not fall along with output, and recovered much more rapidly than has output. Marking a departure from the uk s recent history, the combination of a sharp drop in output but a mild fall in employment sets the British economy apart from many of the other advanced economies.