Edition November 13, 2026

The low-gear labour market

The UK labour market is cooling chiefly because hiring has slowed, not because employers are dismissing more workers.

UK economic activity has held up better than expected, unemployment has risen gradually and redundancies remain relatively low. People are changing jobs less often, and the hiring slowdown compounds a longer-term decline in labour-market mobility, making it harder to enter work or move on. When jobseekers’ skills do not match available vacancies, higher unemployment may ease wage pressures less than it has in the past. Artificial intelligence is changing work tasks and the skills employers need, and its gains will partly depend on how readily people can move towards new opportunities.

This summary is based on the available full source text. Summary prepared with AI assistance. The original source is authoritative.