UK job vacancies hit a record high in May to July amid staff shortages in many industries, according to figures released on Tuesday by the Office for National Statistics.
Vacancies rose by 290,000 from the previous quarter to 953,000. This was a 168,000 increase compared to pre-pandemic levels between January and March 2020.
Meanwhile, the unemployment rate in the three months to June ticked down 0.2 percentage points to 4.7%.
The data showed that the number of payroll employees rose 182,000 to 28.9m in July. However, it remains 201,000 below pre-Covid levels.
Jonathan Athow, deputy national statistician for economic statistics at the ONS, said: “The world of work continues to rebound robustly from the effects of the pandemic.
“The number of people on payroll was up again strongly and has now grown over half a million in the past three months, regaining about four-fifths of the fall seen at the start of the pandemic.
“As large parts of the economy started to reopen in recent months, the number of hours worked went past 1bn a week for the first time since the onset of the pandemic.”
