It can be agreed that 2020 has not been a particularly successful year for many aspects of regular life including UK employment levels, with rates plummeting from July to September. Despite this, the total hours worked have showed a record increase during these months in comparison to the previous quarter, which may be attributed to the easing of lockdown measures over this time-period.
However, a blog published in July by Jonathon Athow explores the results of a Labour Force Survey covering around 35,000 households a quarter, which identified a group of almost half a million named ‘employees’ who were not being paid. Athow summarised that these workers, for various reasons, fall outside the Government’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and are as a result not receiving furlough. These individuals do however believe that they have a job to come back to and have therefore placed themselves in the employed sector.
Employment as a whole, for people aged between 16 and 64 years, had generally been increasing since 2012. However, it is no surprise that the coronavirus pandemic has had a largely damaging affect which is demonstrated by a sharp employment decrease from January 2020. It has however become increasingly hard to collect accurate data due to the suspension of face-to-face interviews resulting in operational changes to the way the Labour Force Survey is conducted. The telephone approach has left certain groups underrepresented and therefore the data is far less precise making it harder to distinguish the reasons for these changes in employment.
