The Office for National Statistics said that the latest figures suggest that the jobs market is showing signs of recovery.

February to April 2021 estimates show a quarterly decrease in the unemployment rate, while the employment rate increased and the economic inactivity rate was largely unchanged on the quarter.

The UK employment rate was estimated at 75.2%, 1.4 percentage points lower than before the pandemic (December 2019 to February 2020), but 0.2 percentage points higher than the previous quarter.

The UK unemployment rate was estimated at 4.7%, 0.8 percentage points higher than before the pandemic, but 0.3 percentage points lower than the previous quarter.

The UK economic inactivity rate was estimated at 21.0%, 0.8 percentage points higher than before the pandemic, but largely unchanged on the quarter.

The number of payrolled employees has increased for the sixth consecutive month, up by 197,000 in May 2021 to 28.5 million. It is however 553,000 below levels seen before the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Since February 2020, the largest falls in payrolled employment have been in the accommodation and food services sector, people aged under 25 years, and people living in London.

The number of job vacancies in March to May 2021 was 758,000, only 27,000 below the level before the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic in January to March 2020; most industries have recovered to show vacancies above pre-pandemic levels. The strongest quarterly increase was in accommodation and food services. In May 2021, the experimental monthly vacancies data, and the experimental Adzuna online vacancies data both surpassed pre-pandemic levels.

Annual growth in average employee pay has continued to increase, however this is driven by compositional effects of a fall in the number and proportion of lower-paid employee jobs and because the latest month is now compared with April 2020 when earnings were first affected by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic (the base effect). Growth in average total pay (including bonuses) and regular pay (excluding bonuses) among employees was 5.6% for the three months February to April 2021.