England’s labour market is moving steadily towards crisis.
Vacancies are collapsing, unemployment is rising, and workers across the country are facing growing insecurity as economic pressures deepen.
The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics show unemployment has risen to 5%, while job vacancies have fallen to just 705,000, the lowest level since 2021. Vacancy numbers dropped by 28,000 in the latest quarter alone and are now down by more than 65,000 compared with a year ago. The figures reveal a labour market that is weakening rapidly across multiple sectors of the economy.
Construction, retail, hospitality, entertainment, and education have all seen major declines in recruitment. Small businesses have been hit especially hard, with firms employing between one and nine staff accounting for the largest fall in vacancies. Payroll employment also dropped sharply by 100,000 in April, one of the steepest monthly falls recorded outside the pandemic years.
The figures show that there are now 2.5 unemployed people competing for every available vacancy, compared with 2.0 a year earlier. That increase highlights how quickly the labour market is deteriorating and how much harder it is becoming for working people to secure employment.
Young workers are bearing the brunt of the crisis. Youth unemployment among 18 to 24-year-olds has risen to 14.7%, the highest level since 2014. Separate research from the Institute for Fiscal Studies found that the proportion of young people in payrolled employment has fallen from 54.9% to 50.6% between 2022 and 2025, a decline approaching the scale seen during the 2008 financial crash and Covid.
At the same time, wage growth is slowing sharply. Regular earnings growth has fallen to 3.4%, while real wages after inflation are increasing by only 0.3%. With inflation and household bills continuing to rise, many workers are effectively facing another squeeze on living standards.
These are not isolated economic statistics. They are the result of years of political failure, weak industrial strategy, and chronic underinvestment across England’s economy. Successive British governments have allowed manufacturing to shrink, county inequality to deepen, infrastructure to decay, and stable employment to be replaced by insecure work and low pay.
The continued collapse in vacancies is a warning sign that businesses are losing confidence and cutting recruitment plans. Employers are facing rising energy costs, weak consumer demand, increasing taxation pressures, and growing economic uncertainty. Workers across England are paying the price.
Stephen Morris, General Secretary of the Workers of England Union said:
“The situation demands far more than short-term measures or political slogans. England urgently needs a major programme of national investment to rebuild secure employment and restore economic stability. That investment must include large-scale funding for transport, housing, manufacturing, energy production, apprenticeships, public services, and regional industry. England cannot continue relying on low wages, insecure work, and service-sector fragility while productive industries decline. Without serious intervention, unemployment will continue to rise, vacancies will continue to disappear, and another generation of workers will face insecurity, stagnation, and lost opportunity”.
The warning signs have been here for decades. This crisis cannot be blamed on Brexit, as some commentators are now trying to argue. The deeper problem is the way the British Government has chosen to fund and manage its economy. Successive governments, regardless of party, have relied heavily on taxation, consumer spending, financial services, and short-term economic management while failing to invest properly in productive industry, infrastructure, manufacturing, skills, and energy security.
The British government has become too dependent on a narrow economic model that generates wealth unevenly and leaves large parts of England vulnerable whenever economic shocks occur. Instead of building a balanced economy capable of creating secure long-term employment, British governments have repeatedly prioritised austerity, underinvestment, and low-cost labour markets.
The result is an economy where vacancies disappear rapidly during periods of instability, businesses lose confidence quickly, and workers are left exposed. Rising unemployment is not simply the consequence of international events. It reflects long-standing structural weaknesses in the British economy that governments have failed to address for years.
Without serious industrial investment and a long-term strategy for rebuilding domestic production, England will remain trapped in a cycle of weak growth, insecure employment, and declining opportunities for working people.
The question is whether the British Government is prepared to act before the damage becomes permanent. The Workers of England Union continues to highlights whenever possible the need for taxation to be redirected back into England.
Stephen Morris
General Secretary
Workers of England Union
References
(Office for National Statistics, Vacancies and Jobs in the UK: April 2026, BBC News, UK unemployment rate rises as vacancies fall to five-year low, The Guardian, UK unemployment unexpectedly rises to 5% as firms squeezed by Iran war” by Tom Knowles, 19 May 2026 and different media outlets)
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Job Losses, Labour Market, Workers of England, Unemployment
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