Labour market briefings
Every month, once the Office for National Statistics publishes its labour market figures, we write a briefing for the councils, housing associations, funders and businesses we work with.
It reads the headline numbers, the revisions behind them, and what they can and can't yet tell us. It follows what's happening to entry-level jobs and to young people, tracks the trends that hold across the year, and says what we're seeing in our own work and how we're responding. Each issue is here in full: the summary on the page, the whole briefing to download.
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Latest briefing
September 2026
Following the ONS labour market release of 15 September 2026.
Demand for staff is still falling. The KPMG and REC Report on Jobs published on 7 September, covering August, shows total demand for staff falling for the 34th month in a row and permanent vacancies falling at the same pace as in July. These are the two measures we said would have to rise before we would say the market is recovering. Permanent placements rose for the first time since September 2022, which the report links partly to returning business confidence. We think it mainly reflects more candidates rather than more jobs: the number of people looking for work rose at its sharpest rate in three months, with recruiters citing redundancies, fewer job opportunities and concerns about job security, and more candidates for fewer roles makes each vacancy easier to fill.
Briefing notes
Longer notes on a single question.