The fragile state of the labour market is likely to be a concern to students and those who have undertaken employer provider apprenticeships. However, recent government figures have shown the employment rate is slowly edging up. 

According to the Labour Market Overview for March 2023, the UK employment rate was 75.7 per cent between November 2022 and January this year. This is an increase of 0.1 percentage points from the preceding quarter.

Despite this, the employment rate is still worse than it was prior to the pandemic. For instance, it is 0.8 percentage points lower than between December 2018 and February 2020. 

It had reached a record high of 76.5 per cent before the spread of Covid-19 across the world, soaring by 0.6 per cent in just a year. 

At the same time, the unemployment rate has not increased recently. Instead, it remained the same at 3.7 per cent between November 2022 and January 2023 and the preceding quarter. 

However, it is 0.3 per cent lower than it was before the pandemic, in spite of concerns over job losses and business closures. 

The number of people being made redundant has also dropped considerably since the pandemic, and its rate is now 3.3 per cent. This is a drop of 0.5 people per 1,000 from before Covid-19.