{"id":2826,"date":"2009-07-15T09:59:58","date_gmt":"2009-07-15T09:59:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/?p=2826"},"modified":"2025-03-27T15:48:52","modified_gmt":"2025-03-27T15:48:52","slug":"uk-vacancies-signalling-slowing-contraction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/?p=2826","title":{"rendered":"UK vacancies signalling slowing contraction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Job vacancies are a coincident indicator of the economy and a leading indicator of employment and (inversely) unemployment. A 7.7% fall in the outstanding stock in the second quarter was the smallest since a 5.5% decline in the second quarter of 2008, supporting other evidence that GDP contraction slowed sharply last quarter.<\/p>\n<p>The first chart updates a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.moneymovesmarkets.com\/journal\/2009\/1\/22\/uk-vacancies-fall-comparable-with-prior-recessions.html\">comparison<\/a> with the last three recessions. The current decline continues to resemble 1989-91 rather than the deeper falls of 1979-81 and 1974-76 (when union power may have constrained layoffs, forcing firms to curb new hiring by more to achieve desired employment levels). Vacancies bottomed 18-24 months after the peak in all three recessions, suggesting that the current fall will end between August 2009 and February 2010. <\/p>\n<p>Other evidence hints at an early trough. For example, the Markit Report on Jobs permanent placements index peaked seven months before vacancies and has been picking up since December, implying a possible vacancies trough in July &ndash; second chart. This would be consistent with a stabilisation or small rise in GDP in the third quarter.<\/p>\n<p>(Note: the vacancies statistics for the earlier recessions refer to openings registered at Job Centres. This series was discontinued in 2001 and replaced by a survey of employers.)<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"full-image-block ssNonEditable\"><span><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/storage\/graphs\/uk-job-vacancies-0709.gif?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1247656578191\" alt=\"\" \/><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"full-image-block ssNonEditable\"><span><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/storage\/graphs\/uk-vacancies-markit-0709.gif?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1247655108478\" alt=\"\" \/><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Job vacancies are a coincident indicator of the economy and a leading indicator of employment and (inversely) unemployment. A 7.7% fall in the outstanding stock in the second quarter was the smallest since a 5.5% decline in the second quarter of 2008, supporting other evidence that GDP contraction slowed sharply last quarter. The first chart [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-money-moves-markets"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2826"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2826\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5135,"href":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2826\/revisions\/5135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmm.9dotdigital.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}