Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

The OECD Employment and Labour Market Statistics provide detailed annual information the employment and labour market for the period 1950/60 onwards for all OECD countries (where data is available).
The OECD Employment and Labour Market Statistics includes a range of annual labour market statistics and indicators broken down by sex and age as well as information about part-time and short-time workers, job tenure, hours worked, unemployment duration, trade union, employment protection legislation, minimum wages, labour market programmes for OECD countries and non-member economies.
These data were first provided by the UK Data Service in February 2015.

Main Topics:

• administrative data
• age dependency ratio
• age groups
• age structure
• agriculture
• armed force
• average salary
• average tenure s
• average wages
• births
• broad economic activities
• civil employment
• civilian labour
• collective dismissals
• constant prices
• current prices
• death rates
• dependent employment
• discouraged workers
• dismissals
• duration of unemployment
• earning-dispersion measures
• earnings
• employee density
• employee turnover
• employee union
• employees
• employment
• employment protection legislation
• employment ratio
• employment status
• exchange rate
• finance
• full-time
• full-year equivalent employee
• gender
• gross earnings
• health
• incidents
• independent workers
• industry
• Involuntary part time workers
• job tenure
• jobs
• labour
• labour force
• labour force forecasts
• labour market
• labour market fluidity
• labour market programmes
• labour regulation
• low pay incidence
• median wages
• membership
• migration rates
• minimum wages
• national legislation
• natural increase rates
• pension age
• population
• population baseline
• population estimates females
• population projections
• PPP
• professional status
• real estate
• rigidness
• salary earner ratio
• salary earners
• self-employed
• services
• short-time workers
• standardised age groups
• statistics
• strict regulation
• strictness of legislation
• survey data
• synthetic indicators
• total employment
• total increase rates
• trade union
• trade union members
• transport
• turnover rate
• unemployment
• union members
• unpaid family workers
• unpaid workers
• vital statistics
• weekly hours
• working age ratio

In the third quarter of 2025, approximately 210,000 job resignations took place in the United Kingdom, compared with 263,000 in the previous quarter. The number of resignations in Q2 2022 was the highest number taking place in a single quarter during this provided time period, reaching 446,000. In most years, there is a noticeable trend of resignations peaking in the fourth quarter of the year and being at their lowest in the first quarter. There is also a significant fall in people resigning from their jobs after the 2008 financial crisis and after the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The Great Resignation The high number of resignations that took place after COVID-19 hit also occurred in the United States. Throughout 2022, approximately 50 million American workers quit their jobs in a trend dubbed 'The Great Resignation' In both the UK and U.S. the trend corresponded with a very tight labor market. After emerging from the initial COVID-19 lockdowns, UK unemployment declined from 2021 onwards, falling to a low of just 3.6 percent in August 2022. There were also numerous job vacancies, which peaked in May 2024 at 1.3 million, though by the end of 2024, both indicators have returned to more typical levels. Labor market concerns for 2025 One of the main concerns of the UK government regarding the labor market is economic inactivity, in particular the reason for this inactivity, Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of people on long-term sick-leave, has increased substantially. At the start of 2020, there were approximately 2.12 million people economically inactive for this reason, with this increasing to almost 2.84 million by the end of 2023, with this declining only slightly to 2.77 million by the end of 2024. It is unclear if there is one overriding factor driving this surge, with possible causes including the prevalence of Long COVID, or the ongoing NHS crisis.

In the 3rd quarter of 2025, the employment rate in the United Kingdom was 75 percent, down from 75.3 percent in the previous quarter. After almost dropping to 70.1 percent in 2011, the employment rate in the United Kingdom started to climb at a relatively fast pace, peaking in early 2020. Due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, however, employment declined to 74.6 percent by January 2021. Although not quite at pre-pandemic levels, the employment rate has since recovered. Labor market trouble in 2025? Although unemployment in the UK spiked at 5.3 percent in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, it fell throughout most of 2022, to just 3.6 percent in August 2022. Around that time, the number of job vacancies in the UK was also at quite high levels, reaching a peak of 1.3 million by May 2022. The strong labor market put employees in quite a strong position, perhaps encouraging the high number of resignations that took place around that time. Since 2023, however, the previously hot labor market has cooled, with unemployment reaching 4.6 percent in April 2025 and job vacancies falling to a four-year low of 736,000 in May 2025. Furthermore, the number of employees on UK payrolls has fallen by 227,500 in the first five months of the year, indicating that 2025 will be a tough one for the labor market. Headline economic measures revised in early 2025 Along with the unemployment rate, the UK's inflation rate is also expected to be higher than initially thought in 2025, reaching a rate of 3.2 percent for the year. The economy will also grow at a slower pace of one percent rather than the initial prediction of two percent. Though these negative trends are not expected to continue in the long term, the current government has already expended significant political capital on unpopular decisions, such as the cutting of Winter Fuel Payments to pensioners in 2024. As of June 2025, they are almost as unpopular as the previous government, with a net approval rating of -52 percent.

The UK has an ageing population. For the Residential Nursing Care industry, this is an opportunity for growth, with demand for more beds expanding. Homes have upped their average weekly fees, contributing to revenue growth. Soaring inflation over the two years through 2023-24 has further raised nursing home fees. However, state involvement has limited growth, which has kept care fees artificially low for many nursing home residents. Residential nursing care revenue is anticipated to climb at a compound annual rate of 2.9% over the five years through 2025-26 to £10.3 billion, including a forecast hike of 1.2% in 2025-26. Weak government funding and wage cost pressures caused by the rising National Living Wage (which climbed to £12.21 in April 2025) have constrained profitability. Labour supply shortages caused by high turnover rates have been of particular concern. According to Skills For Care, the job vacancy rate in 2023-24 in the adult care sector was 8.3%, far above the average rate in the UK economy. That being said, the vacancy rate is declining, mainly thanks to a government-driven recruitment drive to attract overseas workers, which has been helped by reducing visa requirements. Climbing real household disposable income has supported more self-funded residents, aiding residential nursing care. However, data from the Office for National Statistics reveals the percentage of self-funded residents fell from 36.7% in 2019-20 to 34.9% over the year through February 2022. Families were struggling with the rising cost of living, reducing the number of people able to afford private care home costs, which constrained revenue growth. In the year through February 2023, the number of self-funded residents at nursing care homes climbed to 37% of the 372,035 residents. In the two years through 2025-26, interest rates have fallen, stimulating spending on discretionary services like residential nursing homes. Real disposable income is inching up in line with wage costs, which is raising demand for self-funded residents and lifting care homes’ revenue. Over the five years through 2030-31, residential nursing care revenue is estimated to expand at a compound annual rate of 2.3% to £11.5 billion. Robust demand from an ageing population will support industry growth. However, plans for adult social care reforms are to be released in two stages (the first in 2026 and the second in 2028), which has caused greater uncertainty for the sector's future. Staff shortage concerns will continue to plague nursing care.

The Early Career Intervention (ECI) project builds on earlier work by the team aiming to increase the share of female supervisors on sewing floor production lines in Bangladesh’s ready-made garment sector. ECI began as a pilot with three factories. The research team asked each of the three factories to nominate up to 50 sewing machine operators for training, with an equal. Number of females and males. Each of the operators nominated by the factory was given a diagnostic survey which measured basic skills (numeracy, literacy and knowledge of garment production) and interest in being a supervisor. Those workers scoring above the passing level in the diagnostic (a large majority of those nominated in each of the three factories) were randomly allocated to either treatment or control. Those in the treatment group were scheduled to receive three hours of training each fortnight for one year. [Note that the training was cut short by the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.] Our primary outcomes of interest were employee retention and promotion to supervisory roles.

The overwhelming majority of the 4 million workers in the Bangladeshi garment sector are female, but managers at all levels are almost exclusively male. In a series of projects, we have examined the challenges of transitioning women into supervisory roles. The first of the projects was funded through the DfID-ESRC Growth Research Program (ES/J009466/1). Our research has helped factories select better female candidates for supervisory positions, helped training providers hone the content of their training, and led to an increase in female supervisors in the sector. Long-term follow-up data from 44 project factories indicates that the percentage of female supervisors doubled from four percent to over eight percent between 2016 and 2017. In this project, we aim to build on both the momentum toward female leadership and the lessons learned from the earlier research to help training providers deliver more effective training over a longer training window, while preparing women for leadership positions from an early point in their careers.

We will evaluate a pilot training program that aims to intervene earlier in the women's career in the sector, with training spread over a longer period of time. We aim to understand if the earlier and more sustained intervention induces women to invest more in the skills necessary to be effective supervisors; increases their confidence when they are working as supervisors; increases retention rates in the factory and sector; and makes them more effective supervisors after they are promoted. We will work with factories to identify candidates for the training program and work with trainers to customise a training program covering both soft skills - leadership, communication and confidence - and hard skills - line balancing, performance measurement, etc. Training will be spread over a period of one year, with half-day sessions fortnightly.

The research will benefit garment sector producers and buyers. If the evaluation demonstrates that the training provides benefits that exceed its costs, we would expect dissemination of the results to lead to adoption of the training program, or parts of it, into the typical in-house training that factories provide for supervisor skills development for female workers. Moreover, the detailed analysis of the program will provide insights to the challenges and barriers to promoting women that will be useful to management personnel. We expect the project will encourage factory management to consider women for promotion. External training agencies that work with factories, such as Suddoko or BetterWork, may also be interested in incorporating some, or all, of the training components into their curriculum if deemed successful.

Lush Cosmetics is known for its ethically produced, cruelty-free cosmetics products sold at stores that lure customers with its distinct smell. The brand grew worlwide in size and turnover substantially particularly between 2013 and 2019. With that came a doubling of staff employed at Lush stores, going up to a monthly average of ****** people until the year 2019. Afterwards, these value started going down, probably also because of the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the sector. However, as of 2024, the average monthly number of Lush's employees added up to ******.   More stores, more locations, more staff
Lush employees are stationed at Lush stores that operate in more than ** countriess worldwide. Currently the UK, where Lush is headquartered, has the highest number of Lush stores in Europe. Lush has a large presence also outside of Europe, with countries like the United States and Japan. As of 2023, Japanese consumers had about ** Lush stores at their disposal. The company's financial year ends on June 30th each year.Cosmetics retail employment in the UK Lush employees in the UK are among the growing number of people employed at retail stores specialized in the sales of cosmetics in the UK. Over the years, retail employment has generally risen and by 2019 reached its peak value at ****** in this sector.

The number of individuals employed by Tesco in the United Kingdom increased to about ******* employees in 2022 from just about ******* employees in 2012. This figure decreased in 2023 to around *******, yet again increased to over ******* by 2025. Tesco The multinational-operating grocery and general merchandise retailer Tesco PLC was founded in 1919 by Jack Cohen (1898-1979) and is currently headquartered in Hertfordshire, United Kingdom. The product portfolio includes food and beverages, clothing, home appliances, and financial services. Tesco is one of the leading supermarket brands in the United Kingdom (UK), consistently ranking highest in terms of grocery market share. Tesco operates over ***** stores around the world. Retail competitors Most of Tesco’s annual revenue is generated from its key market: the United Kingdom. Additionally, they sell products in stores located in other European and Asian countries. Although Tesco is a leader in the UK grocery market based on market share, ***** (German-founded grocery retailer) was voted as the most popular grocery retailer in the UK in 2024. Tesco ranked in****** place.