🔎 Find out more in the ‘'Work and Poverty’ chapter of #UKPoverty2026, starting on page 100.
www.jrf.org.uk/uk-poverty-2...
02.02.2026 10:08
👍 0
🔁 0
💬 0
📌 0
🔎 Find out more in the ‘'Work and Poverty’ chapter of #UKPoverty2026, starting on page 100.
www.jrf.org.uk/uk-poverty-2...
“Work is the best route out of poverty.”...That’s the promise, but for millions in the UK, it’s broken.
📉 In-work poverty has risen from 2.5m workers in 2000/01 to 3.8m in 2023/24 (12%).
Work matters, but without secure jobs, fair pay and a real safety net, it’s not enough.
8/ The big picture
Rising unemployment, falling vacancies, low earnings growth and persistent inflation
The labour market is under real strain and no longer shielding people from poverty.
We need joined-up action: government + employers removing structural barriers and creating paths back to work.
7/ But jobs are disappearing.
Vacancies (Oct 2025) fell 100 k (-12%) on the year and remain 90 k (-11%) below pre-pandemic.
and..
📉 Payroll employment also falling.
-0.1% (-32 k) quarterly, -0.6% (-180 k) year-on-year.
6/ Reasons for inactivity are shifting.
Those inactive due to long-term sickness rose 1.1pp this year and 7.3pp vs pre-pandemic.
Inactivity due to education fell 1.3pp.
Encouragingly, the share of inactive people wanting a job is up 2.5pp (over 180k people).
5/ Inactivity is stable overall, but still high.
Flat this quarter, down 0.7 pp on the year, yet still 0.1 pp above pre-pandemic. With fewer inactive 16–24s, but more 35–49s.
4/ And the labour market remains weak
Employment (16–64) fell 0.2 pp in Jul–Sept 2025.
Year-on-year it’s up slightly (+0.1 pp) but still 1 pp below pre-pandemic.
📈 Unemployment is rising.
Up 0.3 pp on the quarter and 0.7 pp on the year, now 1.1 pp above pre-pandemic.
3/ Why this matters?
Weak pay hits low-income households hardest.
Inflation is still above target.
Food & housing prices are rising faster than most others.
With little real pay growth, families are struggling to keep up.
2/ 📉 Real earnings have grown slower since Sept 2024.
From Sept 2023–24, real earnings grew 2.4% (£11.70).
A year later: just 0.4% (£2.10).
That’s a big year-on-year deceleration- a trend we’ve been warning about for months, now reflected in the published data.
1/ 🧵 The latest UK labour market data is out and it paints a worrying picture.
Slow growth for real wages, job vacancies are shrinking, and unemployment is creeping up.
Here’s a quick breakdown of what’s happening 👇
📒 Government published Sir Charlie Mayfield's ‘Keep Britain Working’ report today.
An ambitious framework for how employers can support workers in ill-health.
Focus must be here to shift the dial on employment of disabled people & benefit spend, not cutting people's benefits. 🧵
So, what’s needed?
✅ More genuinely inclusive roles
✅ Better regional distribution of accessible jobs
✅ Government and employers working together to create conditions where disabled people cannot just find work but thrive in it.
The shortage of suitable jobs pushes disabled people into precarious work, often self-employed or part-time, with lower pay and weaker protections. This is not just a labour market issue but an inclusion one. Barriers at every stage for willing disabled workers reflect policy and design failures.
Geography matters too.
Access to “Disability Confident” jobs is far from equal:
- Industrial legacy: 1:354 (1 job per 354 UC-H claimants )
- Industrial retirement: 1:242
- Affluent commuter belt: 1:47
- Remote rural areas: 1:72
- Affluent towns: 1: 73
- Semi-rural Britain: 1:77
A useful lens is the Disability Confident Employer Scheme. There’s a stark mismatch between disabled jobseekers and available roles. In 2024/25, for every “Disability Confident” role advertised, 100 people received health-related Universal Credit (UC-H).
www.jrf.org.uk/social-secur...
Behind these numbers lies a deeper story about opportunity.
The share of economically inactive disabled people who want a job has risen from 20.6% in 2023/24 to 21.7% in 2024/25, and remains above non-disabled levels, showing that many disabled people want to work, but the jobs aren’t there.
Meanwhile, the employment gap between disabled and non-disabled people has widened, up 1.1 percentage points in the past year.
That’s the largest increase since COVID hit, driven mainly by a stronger rise in employment for non-disabled people (+0.9pp).
After steady gains post-pandemic, the disability employment rate has slipped slightly, from 53.1% in 2024 to 52.8% in 2025 (-0.2pp). This reverses years of slow growth from a drop in the disabled employment rate after the pandemic.
The latest DWP data (Apr–Jun 2025) reveals an early warning sign: the number of disabled people in work may be starting to fall, the first year-on-year drop in over a decade (though not yet statistically significant).
.
Here’s what the data tells us and why it matters 👇
5/ There is one bright spot.
Between 2019–2025, the gender pay gap for full-time employees narrowed from 17.4% to 12.8% and at the lower end, it’s nearly closed to 1.6% at the 10th percentile.
Still, progress is uneven: at the top, the gap remains stubborn at around 19% for high earners.
4/ Why it matters?: food and housing inflation remain above target and with limited real income growth, low income households are likely to face increasing financial strain and struggle to stay afloat.
3/ The hit was worst at the bottom of income distribution.
At the 10th percentile, hourly earnings growth fell from 5.1% in 2023/24 to 1.8% in 2024/25.
Higher earners fared slightly better, with the 90th percentile down from 3.5% to 2.6%.
2/ As @statspeter.bsky.social has shown, AWE data indicate that real earnings have stagnated since Sept 2024, growth has been near zero for 11 straight months.
The latest ASHE figures confirm the trend: real pay growth slowed sharply, from 2.9% in 2023/24 to 1.1% in 2024/25.
1/ 📉 Real earnings growth in the UK has slowed sharply and the hit is falling hardest on lower earners.
A quick thread on what the latest Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) tells us 👇
There is one bright spot.
Between 2019-2025, the gender pay gap for full-time employees narrowed from 17.4% to 12.8% and at the lower end, it’s nearly closed to 1.6%.
Still, progress is uneven: at the top, the gap remains stubborn at around 19% for high earners.
Why it matters: food and housing inflation remain above target and with limited real income growth, low income households are likely to face increasing financial strain and struggle to stay afloat.
The slowdown hit the bottom of the income distribution hardest.
At the 10th percentile, hourly earnings growth fell from 5.1% in 2023/24 to 1.8% in 2024/25. Higher earners fared slightly better, with the 90th percentile down from 3.5% to 2.6%.
As @statspeter.bsky.social has shown, AWE data indicate that real earnings have stagnated since Sept 2024, growth has been near zero for 11 straight months.
The latest ASHE figures confirm the trend: between April 2024–2025, real pay growth slowed sharply, from 2.9% in 2023/24 to 1.1% in 2024/25.