Fewer Job Openings, More Jobseekers — Britain’s Warning Light Is Flashing
The jobs pipeline is breaking — and the long-term damage will outlast the headlines.
Last week, I looked at youth unemployment — and why younger workers tend to feel the pain first when hiring slows. This week, we’ve got another clear signal: vacancies.
The ONS vacancy series shows the labour market is still cooling. And the real-time job advert data (Adzuna) suggests the weakness is now getting sharper at the margin, especially for entry-level and graduate roles.
This matters because vacancies are one of the cleanest “forward indicators” we have. When vacancies fall, it usually means businesses are quietly pulling back, long before ministers admit anything has changed.
📉 What the data says: hiring demand is weaker — and it’s been sliding for a long time
The latest ONS estimate puts UK vacancies at 726,000 (Nov 2025–Jan 2026).
That’s basically flat on the previous three-month period, but the trend is the story:
Vacancies are down 73,000 (-9.2%) on the year
They’re below pre-pandemic levels
And ONS notes we’ve only gone “broadly flat” now after 39 consecutive quarterly falls since mid-2022
In other words, the jobs market hasn’t stabilised from strength; it’s stabilising after a long decline.
And it isn’t confined to one corner of the economy. Vacancies fell year-on-year in 14 of 18 sectors, with some of the steepest falls in construction, a sector that tends to weaken when confidence drops and activity slows.
🧊 The warning light: competition is rising — and workers lose leverage
The most revealing stat in the ONS release isn’t just the vacancy number.
It’s this: there are now 2.6 unemployed people per vacancy (Oct–Dec 2025), up from 1.9 a year earlier.
That ratio is the labour market in plain English.
When it rises, it means:
more people chasing fewer openings
longer job hunts
more employers are able to be picky
less bargaining power on pay, hours and flexibility
and a higher risk that unemployment rises next
This is why people can feel the job market getting worse before the official narrative catches up. The “tightness” is easing, and that usually isn’t because productivity suddenly improved. It’s because demand for labour is weakening.
⚡ Real-time adverts: the live market looks worse — and graduates are getting squeezed
ONS is a survey-based series and uses a three-month average, so it moves smoothly.
Adzuna is closer to the “live feed” of what employers are posting right now.
And that picture is harsher:
Advertised vacancies fell to around 695,000 in January
First time below 700,000 since January 2021
Down roughly 16% year-on-year
Graduate vacancies below 10,000 for the first time since Adzuna started tracking
That’s the canary in the coal mine.
When companies get nervous, they don’t usually start by announcing layoffs. They start by freezing hiring, and the first thing to go is often junior and graduate recruitment.
So yes, the vacancy story is bigger than one month. But the graduate collapse is a warning about what’s coming next: fewer entry routes, fewer career starts, and more young people stuck competing for the same shrinking pool of jobs.
🚧 Why this really matters: entry-level jobs aren’t “nice-to-haves” — they’re the pipeline
This is where the stakes get serious.
If young people can’t get those first jobs, you don’t just get “a tough year”. You get long-term damage.
1) Scarring is real
Missing that first rung can knock earnings down for years. People start in lower-quality roles, progress more slowly, and some never fully catch up, even when the economy improves.
2) Productivity takes a hit later
Entry-level roles are how the economy trains its future workforce. If firms stop hiring juniors, you don’t just get fewer juniors; you get fewer skilled mid-career workers in 3–5 years. That feeds directly into Britain’s long-running productivity problem.
3) Brain drain and disengagement
When it’s hard to get started, the most mobile will look elsewhere, and those who stay are more likely to drift into insecure work or inactivity. That’s how a weak jobs market becomes a competitiveness problem.
This is why the youth unemployment story and the vacancies story belong together: young people get squeezed first when hiring demand weakens.
💷 Fewer Jobs, Less Tax, Bigger Bills: The Doom-Loop Risk
This isn’t just a “jobs market” story; it’s a living standards and tax base story.
When vacancies fall, and competition rises, it doesn’t just hit one group. It ripples across the whole economy:
Fewer people in work (or slower wage growth) means lower Income Tax and National Insurance receipts.
Weaker confidence and spending means lower VAT.
And when people struggle to find work, the state faces higher support costs — from benefits to housing support to back-to-work programmes.
That’s the trap: a weaker labour market shrinks revenues at the same time spending pressures rise, and then ministers reach for higher taxes, which can weaken growth further.
So the response has to be clear and practical:
1) Make hiring attractive again. Stop loading extra costs onto employing people. If you want businesses to recruit, promote and invest in workers, you have to make it cheaper and less risky to hire across the whole workforce.
2) Rebuild growth by restoring confidence. People need more money in their pockets, and businesses need a reason to expand. That means lower taxes on work and aspiration where it’s credible, but…
3) Fund it with real reform, not slogans. “Efficiency savings” alone are too vague. If you cut taxes, you must be honest about where the savings come from. That means looking hard at the welfare system and making sure work always pays — with support targeted to those who genuinely can’t work, and a system that helps everyone else back into employment.
Because if the policy response is just spin, the pattern won’t change: fewer vacancies, more competition, weaker growth, and a shrinking tax base carrying a bigger bill.
✍️ Jamie Jenkins
Stats Jamie | Stats, Facts & Opinions
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