The pace of change in the UK jobs market has slowed significantly since the 1980s and even through the pandemic, according to new research. While popular perceptions are that automation and gig work are rapidly transforming the job market, the research finds the rate of change between sectors has decreased to the lowest level in a century. This stability has lessened the risk of job losses but also reduced opportunities for workers to switch jobs for higher pay. However, the job market is still expected to experience increased change over the next decade due to factors like Brexit, COVID-19, and the transition to renewable energy.

1. 7/1/22, 12:58 PM
Stable job market is ‘mixed blessing’ for UK workers | Financial Times
Page 1 of 3
https://www.ft.com/content/703d8b25-9317-43bb-841a-4a1a8ff6ecd0?shareType=nongift
Stable job market is ‘mixed blessing’
for UK workers
Shifts in working life have slowed since 1980s
despite AI and gig economy, study shows
yesterday
Increased employment stability has meant fewer opportunities to move to a new job offering better pay and
prospects © Hollie Adams/Bloomberg
The pace of change in the UK jobs market has slowed to its lowest level in
decades and, even the disruption of the pandemic, has been a far cry
from the upheaval of the 1980s, according to research by the Resolution
Foundation and the London School of Economics.
The think-tank said its findings, published on Thursday, were at odds with
popular perceptions that changes to working life were accelerating, with
robots rapidly replacing people and gig economy jobs replacing factory
work.

2. 7/1/22, 12:58 PM
Stable job market is ‘mixed blessing’ for UK workers | Financial Times
Page 2 of 3
https://www.ft.com/content/703d8b25-9317-43bb-841a-4a1a8ff6ecd0?shareType=nongift
The reality is that the
pace of change has
been slowing down,
not speeding up
Nye Cominetti,
Resolution Foundation
“These claims are very wide of the mark. The reality is that the pace of
change has been slowing down, not speeding up,” said Nye Cominetti,
senior economist at the Resolution Foundation.
The UK has seen a huge long-term shift in employment away from
manufacturing — whose workforce fell by more than 5m between 1970
and 2021 — and into professional services, health and education, as well
as lower paid sectors such as hospitality and administration.
This change was not all accomplished through brutal lay-offs of mid-
career workers: much of the fall in manufacturing employment was owing
to a more organic process of older employees leaving the workforce
altogether, while young people joined other sectors, the report said.
But the rate at which jobs in different sectors have grown and shrunk has
slowed dramatically, reaching its lowest level in a century during the past
decade. Even in 2021, with all the dislocations owing to the pandemic,
changes in the structure of the labour market represented just 7 per cent
of total employment, about a third of the peak reached in the late 1980s,
the researchers found.
The Resolution Foundation
said this relative stability had
been a “mixed blessing for
workers”
, as it had lessened
the risk of people losing their
job, and being forced to
downgrade to a worse one —
but it had also meant fewer
opportunities to move to a
new job offering better pay
and prospects.
The share of workers losing their job in each three month period halved

3. 7/1/22, 12:58 PM
Stable job market is ‘mixed blessing’ for UK workers | Financial Times
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https://www.ft.com/content/703d8b25-9317-43bb-841a-4a1a8ff6ecd0?shareType=nongift
between 1991 and 2019. But the share of workers choosing to change
jobs in each quarter also fell sharply, from 3.2 per cent in 2000 to 2.4 per
cent in 2019 — a drop of 25 per cent. Meanwhile, the share of workers
choosing to move to a job in a new sector fell by 35 per cent during the
same period.
This is potentially a downside, since over a 50 year period, pay growth for
workers who move jobs has on average been 4 percentage points higher
than for those choosing to stay put.
However, the report cautioned that the pace of change in the labour
market is likely to pick up over the next decade, as the combination of
Covid-19, Brexit and the transition to net zero reshape the economy. The
authors adding that policymakers should try to ease the transition as far
as possible by steering young people into careers in growing sectors,
rather than “attempting to hasten the exit of older workers” in 1980s style.
“Workers should make the most of this change with pay-enhancing job
moves,” Cominetti said, adding: “Many workers will lose out too, however,
and they will need to be better protected than they have been during
previous periods of big economic change.”