Government statistics offices usually record how the labour market situation differs across regions and measure disparities between different segments of the population. For example, it is the difference in the number of working men and women; hours worked among men and women, employment rates depending on education and work experience, the effect of age on employment opportunities. If the company has a conscious and responsible attitude towards employment, it is crucial to consider such inequalities and contribute to their elimination.
The UK is a country with a reasonably stable labour market. However, the country’s economy is gearing up to face challenges of COVID-19 and Brexit, associated with providing fair and safe employment opportunities for refugees and migrants and ensuring decent work conditions for vulnerable groups. According to the UK government statistics office, “the employment rate is the proportion of people aged between 16 and 64 years who are in employment”. From March to May 2020, the employment rate for the UK was 76.4%. The highest rate was fixed in the South East at 79.7% and in the South West at 78.8%. At the same time, the lowest employment rate was marked in Northern Ireland at 71.6% and Scotland at 74.1%. It is essential to know that employment rate estimates people who sometimes have more than one job.
Therefore, workforce jobs are another indicator that measures the number of filled posts in the state economy. The data are usually gained from the Short-Term Employment Surveys (STES), the Quarterly Public Sector Employment Survey (QPSES) and the Labour Force Survey (LFS). For March 2020, there were 35.83 million workforce jobs in the UK. It is noteworthy that employment in the service and manufacturing sectors is unevenly distributed, with a significant predominance of jobs in the service sector, about 83.8%. Moreover, London has the highest proportion at 91.8%, and Northern Ireland has the lowest proportion at 78.0% in the service sector. A relatively large percentage of professions in the service sector work in the financial and administrative areas.
An equally important indicator that determines the state of the labour market in a particular country is the unemployment rate. According to the Office for National Statistics, unemployment measures people “who have been actively seeking work within the last four weeks and are available to start work within the next two weeks”. It is also interesting that this indicator reflects the percentage of the economically active population, both in business and not in employment, who are seeking and available to work. The unemployment rate in the UK for the mentioned period is relatively low, 3.9%, and remains virtually unchanged. London is the region with the highest unemployment rate at 5.1%, followed by the North East at 5.0%. On the opposite, economically inactive people are those who are not classed as unemployed because they are not seeking work or are unable to start work within the periods mentioned above.
Therefore, the economic inactivity rate may differ much from the unemployment rate. The estimated economic inactivity rate in the UK was 20.4% for the period of March-May 2020. The highest rate was fixed in Northern Ireland at 26.6% and Wales at 23.1%. The regions with the lowest economic inactivity were the South East with 17.8% and the South West with 18.3%. Thus, despite the low unemployment rates, the percentage of the non-working population can be significantly higher.
The labour market in Germany differs in many ways from the UK labour market. In particular, Germany has more favourable unemployment and economic inactivity rates. In May 2020, the number of unemployed was 1.73 million people, and the number of persons in employment was 42.59 million. At the same time, the size of the labour force amounted to 46.476 in 2019, which is 2.5 million more than in 2009. Of these, 4.15 million are self-employed, and 41.106 are employees. Besides, 33.735 million work in services, 10.925 million – in the production industry and 596 thousand in agriculture, forestry and fishing. These figures differ dramatically from the UK figures: in March 2020, the East Midlands had the highest proportion of jobs in the production sector at 13.2%, while London had the lowest percentage at 3.2%. It is because London has primarily service-based industries within the region, mostly in financial and administrative sectors.
The indicators of the distribution of jobs, depending on the level of education and gender, are also impressive. Thus, the amount of registered unemployed is 2.267 million, and the number of persons exclusively in marginal employment is 4.646 million. The number of reported job vacancies is 774 thousand. There are 22.608 million working men and 19.771 million working women of whom 5.303 million have low, 24.195 million have medium, and 12.829 million have high educational attainment. Interestingly, in Germany, 33.407 million employees are subject to social insurance contributions, up 5.8 million from 2009. All these indicators show a relatively favourable situation on the labour market.
Notably, Germany has the fourth-lowest unemployment rate in the EU-27. The overall rate is 3.9%, and the youth unemployment rate is 5.4%, compared to the average of 15.7% in the EU. Under the COVID-10 circumstances, it would also be interesting to mention that 2.401 million employees are working from home on less than half of working days. Besides, 565 thousand are working from home on at least half of working days, and 674 thousand – on every working day. These statistics may as well speak of the viability of the growing general trend of work from home jobs.
Thus, in Germany, there is a tendency to a tight labour market, as well as in the UK. In particular, it is evident that in both countries, the demand for labour is significantly lower than the supply. Scientists note that the term tight labour market describes a situation when there are a limited number of job opportunities, which makes it difficult to increase wages on the national average.
At the same time, on loose labour markets, demand for labour significantly exceeds supply, which forces employers to look for additional sources of motivation and raise wages.
Given the above, how organizations position themselves strategically in competitive labour markets should be related to how important it is for an organization to attract and retain the best employees. The strategies for retaining different employees will differ from each other. IT specialist retention strategies will be more focused on adjusting the motivational strategy under the personal profiles of each specialist. At the same time, to retain multigenerational employees, managers will have to focus on fostering a diversity-friendly workplace culture, implementing effective interpersonal communication strategies, offering professional growth opportunities, and eliminating negative generational stereotyping.