Labour market overview, UK: September 2024

Main points
The estimated number of vacancies in the UK in June to August 2024 was 857,000, a decrease of 42,000 or 4.7% from March to May 2024.
Vacancy numbers decreased on the quarter for the 26th consecutive period in June to August 2024, with vacancies decreasing in all 18 industry sectors.
Total estimated vacancies were down by 143,000 (14.3%) in June to August 2024, from the level of a year ago, although they remained 61,000 (7.7%) above their pre-coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic January to March 2020 levels.

True diversity is key to enabling innovation, excellence and sustainability for the industrial workforce

Leveraging diversity and inclusion for the betterment of industry not only leads to improved job prospects but delivers benefits across businesses, even in seemingly unrelated areas like sustainability.

Diversity across industry has made some strong and visible progress in recent years, but the sector as a whole still has a long way to go. I am very proud to hold my role of System & Architecture Engineer at Schneider Electric. As a company we place huge importance on all forms of diversity, reporting an impressive statistic, with women representing more than one-third of the global workforce including top positions.

Sickness benefit claimants should look for work - PM

Keir Starmer has said he believes that people claiming long-term sickness benefits should be expected to look for work.

He added that there would be "hard cases" and that the government and businesses should help those who may feel anxious about re-entering the workplace, but that the "basic proposition that you should look for work is right".

The prime minister was speaking to the BBC's Today programme, following his party conference speech in which he said he wanted to "level" with the country about the "trade-offs" people would face.

He told Labour activists: "If we want to maintain support for the welfare state, then we will legislate to stop benefit fraud, do everything we can to tackle worklessness."