Since the financial crash just over a decade ago, the United Kingdom has been working hard to improve employment opportunities and numbers. Investment, from both public and private funds, has seen creation of new jobs in Sheffield, Manchester, London, Liverpool and other major cities. Employment numbers have received a boost as a result. And women are also playing a crucial role in the situation as well.
According to the latest set of figures available from the Office for National Statistics, the UK’s current employment rate has hit a new high of 76.3%, and one of the crucial factors has been the record number of women who are currently in full-time employment. One hundred twenty-six thousand more women are now working full-time when compared with the results of the previous quarter, and this represents a significant rise.
One of the reasons for this is said to be the decision to change when women can claim their state pension. Up until recently, women could retire at 65 and claim their state pension, but by October 2020 women will have to be 66 before they can do so. And, there are plans for this to increase to 67 between now and 2028.
Another reason is said to be the fewer women are now staying away from the working environment to care for and bring up children or to be housewives. There’s now an eagerness to get back into work as soon as possible after having children, which again helps to boost employment figures within the United Kingdom.
At the time of writing, there’s a record 32.9 million people in the United Kingdom who are currently in full-time employment. And this represents a rise of 0.5% based on the figures for the previous three months, showing that everything continues to move in the right direction.
David Freeman, of the Office for National Statistics, was keen to highlight the important role women play, “The employment rate is at a new record high, with over two-thirds of the growth in people in work in the last year coming from women working full-time.”
Sheffield, which is one of the leading cities where employment opportunities are concerned, also plays home to projects such as Women to Work, which is attempting to change how women are perceived and their involvement in the workplace across multiple industries. They have bespoke programmes designed to support women from recruitment through to retirement, with the project having a positive effect on the relationship between women and the workplace.
One of their founders, Emma Shute, said, “We recently ran a highly successful women’s development programme with South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue. The programme had a two-stranded approach to support the development of individual women within the organisation to develop a mindset, network, toolkit and set of resources to use positively to manage their personal development and work-life. Both in the immediate and longer-term and to support the development of the organisation itself to identify organisational and personal barriers, enablers & solutions to women’s development in the service.”
As more of these projects and systems are brought into play, and with the other external factors, women will continue to play a crucial role in driving employment figures as we move through 2020 and beyond.
