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The Labour Market Story: the UK Following Recession The Labour Market Story: The UK Following Recession Briefing Paper July 2014 The Labour Market Story: The UK Following Recession The Labour Market Story: The UK Following Recession Briefing 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 1.1 Recession and recovery ......................................................................................... 1 1.2 Productivity .............................................................................................................. 6 1.3 Competitiveness ...................................................................................................... 8 1.4 Industry sectors ..................................................................................................... 12 1.5 Spatial variation in economic performance ........................................................ 15 2 The labour market ..................................................................................... 19 2.1 Unemployment and job creation .......................................................................... 19 2.2 Employment: a range of experiences .................................................................. 23 2.3 Changing employment practices ......................................................................... 27 2.4 Migration and the labour market .......................................................................... 28 2.5 Labour markets across nations and regions ...................................................... 29 2.6 Matching skills to needs ....................................................................................... 31 3 Skills, pay, and mobility ............................................................................ 36 3.1 The link between skills and employment and earnings outcomes .................. 36 3.2 Earnings and living standards ............................................................................. 37 3.3 Occupational change and job prospects ............................................................ 39 3.4 Inequalities in the labour market .......................................................................... 41 4 Skills and policy: challenges and possibilities ....................................... 42 4.1 Skills and economic growth ................................................................................. 42 4.2 The state of the labour market ............................................................................. 43 4.3 Policy challenges ................................................................................................... 44 Bibliography ....................................................................................................... 47 iii The Labour Market Story: The UK Following Recession Tables and figures Figure 1.1 UK GDP growth and economic sentiment, 2000-2013 ......................................... 2 Figure 1.2 UK macroeconomic performance since 2006 Q1 ................................................. 4 Figure 1.3 Change in output and unemployment across advanced economies, 2007-2013 ................................................................................................................................... 4 Figure 1.4 Output growth and unemployment across advanced economies, 2013............ 5 Figure 1.6 GDP per hour worked, 2000-2012, selected advanced economies (2007=100) . 7 Figure 1.7 Workforce qualification levels, % economically active, 2004-2013 .................. 10 Table 1.1 Global Competitiveness Index 2013-2014 rankings ........................................... 11 Table 1.2 Growing and contracting industry sectors, 2002-2012 ...................................... 13 Figure 1.8 Output per hour worked, by sector, 2005-2013 .................................................. 14 Figure 1.9 Output per head and employment rate across nations and regions, 2012...... 16 Figure 1.11 Change in output and employment across LEP areas, 2007-2012 ................... 17 Figure 2.1 Output and employment in three UK recessions ............................................... 20 Figure 2.2 UK Beveridge Curve 2001-2014 ............................................................................ 21 Figure 2.4 Change in employment and unemployment, by age group, 2007-2013 ........... 25 Figure 2.5 Youth unemployment and earning while learning, EU member states, 2012 .. 26 Figure 2.6 Unemployment by duration, 16-64 ....................................................................... 26 Figure 2.7 Temporary employees, 1997 to 2013 quarterly, 000s employees ..................... 28 Figure 2.9 Workforce with no qualifications and change in unemployment, 2007-2013 .. 30 Figure 2.10 Vacancies and unemployed by industry, before, during, after recession ....... 34 Figure 3.1 Growth in average real wages, 2001-2013 ........................................................... 38 Figure 3.3 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 some distance to make up after a sharp recession and a delayed return to growth. Amidst those tough times, the rise in UK unemployment following recession was smaller and less sustained than previous experience would suggest, and unemployment is now falling rapidly as the economy grows. • The most troubling aspect of the period since the onset of recession is the fall in labour productivity, and its subsequent weakness. This has applied across industries and seems to result from a combination of factors, including problems of 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 term origins, including the decline in youth employment, rising underemployment in terms 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 there has been some variation, typically strengthening existing differences. On the other hand, looking at local level within England, the experiences of different types of area suggests traditional ‘north-south’ narratives are far from the whole story. • The marked decline in real pay since the onset of recession (and its prior stagnation, on some measures) is linked to the drop in labour productivity. Additional factors such as non-wage costs of employment, and a rise in inequality within wages, also play a part. • Evidence through the recession continues to show that those with higher skills and qualifications are more likely to stay employed and have substantially higher earnings prospects. • Policy can help by shaping education, training and employment institutions and practices to ensure that they adapt to changing market conditions and business needs. Arguably, policy based on government ‘pushing’ skills to employers has not been successful. Effective policy depends on employers’ participation in designing, implementing and engaging with the solution. v 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. 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. 1.1 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 1.1). 1 The Labour Market Story: The UK Following Recession Figure 1.1 UK GDP growth and economic sentiment, 2000-2013 8.0 130 6.0 120 4.0 110 2.0 100 0.0 q annualised - o - -2.0 90 -4.0 2000 Q1 2001 Q1 2002 Q1 2003 Q1 2004 Q1 2005 Q1 2006 Q1 2007 Q1 2008 Q1 2009 Q1 2010 Q1 2011 Q1 2012 Q1 2013 Q1 80 -6.0 70 -8.0 % growth GDP q GDP growth % 60 Indicator Sentiment Economic ECFIN -10.0 -12.0 50 GDP (ABMI) qoq ann ECFIN
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