More warning lights are flashing on Britain’s jobs market today as Andy Burnham braces for a winter of discontent.
Official figures showed numbers on company payrolls fell by 26,000 last month, and are now down 145,000 over the past year.
Job vacancies tumbled to a fresh five-year low in the three months to August, with around 8,000 fewer advertised compared to the same period in 2025.
Meanwhile, private sector regular wage growth was 2.9 per cent – barely keeping ahead of inflation.
However, the picture is different in the public sector, where annual pay rises accelerated to 6.6 per cent. The state also added
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