Our response to the ONS January Employment figures

IMMEDIATE REACTION TO LATEST ONS EMPLOYMENT STATS

Tuesday 18th February 2025

In response to the new data published this morning by the Office for National Statistics on January’s employment levels, Matthew Elliott, President of the Jobs Foundation, has highlighted that the Government is running adrift of its goal to ‘Get Britain Working’.

“Today’s ONS figures reveal a worrying lack of growth in employment, with just 49,000 new payrolled jobs created in January compared to the preceding year, following a drop of 32,000 in December.

While ministers should be praised for their ambitions to get two million more people into the workforce, things are clearly not moving at anything like the speed they need to. At this rate, it would take over 40 years to achieve the Government’s target.

Rises to Employer NICs and the looming Employment Rights Bill mean that businesses aren’t able to create enough new jobs to get people back to work.

To reverse this worrying trend, the Government must give businesses the policy environment they need to create new jobs and provide decent training. The rise in Employer NICs should be scrapped, the Employment Rights Bill revisited, and the upcoming Spring Statement needs to include concrete policies to drive economic growth.”

NOTES TO EDITORS

1. The Jobs Foundation is a registered charity (1202928) set up in 2023 to champion the role of business as a force for good, supporting the crucial role companies play giving people a step up in life by providing jobs and training opportunities.

We seek to have a practical impact on the ground, by helping business leaders do even more for their local communities, by providing them with the tools, knowledge, and best practice on employing and training people from less privileged backgrounds.

2. Lord Matthew Elliott has worked in UK public policy for almost twenty-five years, including serving as the CEO of two successful cross-party referendum campaign. He is also the founder of four high-profile pressure groups and convener of two respected policy commissions.

3. All figures are taken from the ‘ONS Earnings and employment from PayAs You Earn Real Time Information, UK: February 2025’, which you can find here: https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsa ndworkinghours/bulletins/earningsandemploymentfrompayasyouearnrealtimei nformationuk/latest

4. The Government has an ambition, as announced in their Get Britain Working White Paper last year, to boost the employment rate to 80 per cent by bringing two million more people into the workforce.