The UK unemployment rate has dropped by 45,000 to 2.6 million for the quarter ending in March, revealed the Office for National Statistics on Wednesday. However, the number of part-time workers looking for full-time employment was still considered too high.
The number of individuals considered employed rose by 105,000 reaching 30 million, but the increase was mainly due to a surge in part-time workers, admits The Independent. Around 8 million workers are doing part-time jobs, the highest it has been since 1992. Those workers in part-time roles that were actively looking for full-time positions went up by 73,000, soaring to 1.4 million. Self-employment also increased by 89,000 this quarter, reaching a record number of 4.1 million.
British Prime Minister, David Cameron, stated that the news concerning the latest unemployment figures was "welcome that we have had the largest rise in employment for over a year, the number of people in work since the last election is up by 370,000, private sector jobs are up by 600,000." However, he added that the English government was "not remotely complacent about this because although there is good news about youth unemployment and the claimant count coming down, there is still too many people in part-time work who want full-time work, and also we still have the challenge of tackling long-term unemployment."
The Office for National Statistics also revealed that the amount of people unemployed for over two reached 428,000, an increase of 5,000 individuals.
Chief economist with the British Chambers of Commerce admitted that with the Eurozone crisis becoming more troubling and growing "economic pressures facing the UK, these figures are encouraging, but there are still some worrying features."
According to John Philpott, a chief economic advisor with the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, a professional association for HR specialists, "These are odd figures, best explained by a surge in part-time odd-jobbing." He acknowledged that even though "a weak double-dip labor market might be able to sustain enough odd-jobbing to prevent unemployment hitting the three million mark, the combination of a growing army of underemployed odd-jobbers, 2.63 million people unemployed and pay rises still lagging well behind price inflation suggests that the underlying employment situation is worse than at any point in at least the past two decades."
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