The Unemployment rate of United Kingdom attained a value of 4.30 % in 2024
The indicator recorded a historical change (bps difference) of 30 bps between 2021 to 2024, and is expected to decline by...
GlobalData projects the figure to change by 5 bps between 2025 and 2029, reaching...
Unemployment
Unemployed people are those that are actively looking for work but are having no luck. The unemployment rate is derived by dividing the total number of unemployed people by the total population of a certain region or workforce. It is one of the most important measures of a country's economic health.
Global Unemployment
The International Labour Organization estimates that by the end of 2021, the average regional unemployment rate will be 9.6%, down from the 10.6% it reached in 2020 but up from the 8% that was noted in 2019, which is used in this case as a benchmark to determine the impact of the pandemic's first two years.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reported that the unemployment rate in OECD regions fell below the pre-pandemic rate when its February 2022 unemployment numbers were published in April 2022. Since this data series' inception in 2001, this is its lowest point. Additionally, the OECD region's unemployment rate decreased further, dropping by 0.7 million to 34.9 million people.
Unemployment Rate of the United Kingdom
The unemployment rate in the United Kingdom in 2021 stood at 4.7%. Between 2018-2021, the unemployment rate in the United Kingdom was highest in 2021 at 4.7% and lowest in 2019 at 3.8%. The unemployment rate increased by 4.4% on a year-on-year basis in 2021 and increased by 14.6% between 2018-2021.
As per GlobalData estimates, the unemployment rate in the UK increased to 4.7% in 2021 from 4.5% in 2020. With the furlough scheme discontinued, the unemployment rate shot up in 2021. The unemployment rate in the UK for the three months period ending February 2022 stood at 3.8%, a decrease of 0.2 percentage points as compared to the three months period ending January 2022.
According to the Office of National Statistics (ONS), the unemployment rate from Dec 2022 to Feb 2022 decreased by 0.2 percentage points quarterly to reach 3.8%. Also, the number of people unemployed for up to 12 months decreased during the same period, reaching a record low. Meanwhile, those unemployed for over 12 months continued to decrease from the peak in July to September 2021. The government was successful in increasing the number of jobs to tackle the unemployment rate. According to the ONS, the number of job vacancies from January to March 2022 rose to a new record of 1.3 million.
Factors that Cause Unemployment
Some of the key factors that affect unemployment in a nation are recession, government policies, geographic labor mobility, technological breakthroughs, the global economy, growing populations, and worker education, training, and skill development.
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