Office of National Statistics data revealed that the UK employment rate was 76.1% in February-April 2019 – higher than a year earlier (75.6%) and the joint highest figure on record.
According to the recent report, self-employment rose by a notable 1.5% to 4,913k (underpinned by 1.8% more people working full-time and 0.8% more working part-time) – representing a self-employment rate of 15.0%.
Interestingly, permanent employment fell by 106k, whilst the number of unpaid family workers increased by 4k (+3.3% to 132k) and the number of individuals on Government training & employment schemes fell by 8k (18.6%) to 37k.
As such, self-employment was the only form of paid employment to increase this quarter.