Unemployment in the United Kingdom - Statistics & Facts
The unemployment rate in the United Kingdom was 3.7 percent in January 2023, one of the lowest rates of unemployment recorded since 1974. Overall, this meant that there were approximately 1.25 million people that were unemployed as of this month, half the number that were out of work in 2011, following the global financial crisis. Although there was a temporary uptick in unemployment in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw the unemployment rate peak at 5.1 percent in late 2020, this was lower than was initially feared when the pandemic started. Between April 2020 and October 2021 the job retention scheme, had approximately 11.7 million jobs on furlough, and was likely one of the main reasons unemployment was not much higher during this time. Unemployment is also expected to remain low for the near future, with the forecast for the annual unemployment rate being 4.1 percent in 2023, and 4.4 percent in 2024.
