George Osborne may get a few more heckles during his Budget in light of unemployment data out today, a recruitment firm has said.
Office of National Statistics show the employment rate for those aged from 16 to 64 for November 2012 to January 2013 was 71.5%.
It is up 0.3 percentage points from August to October 2012. There were 29.73m people in employment aged 16 and over, up 131,000 from August to October 2012.
David Morel, director of Tiger Recruitment, said the data was not as robust as expected but the jobs market was stronger than a year ago, with London taking the lead.
He said: "George Osborne will get a few more heckles during his Budget as a result of the 7,000 new unemployed but overall things are moving in the right direction. Crucially, there is much more candidate movement in the market.
"People are now far more comfortable about switching jobs and are no longer fixated by the myth of 'last in, first out'. Despite the ongoing problems in the economy, people are increasingly of the view that you can't delay indefinitely and are therefore making their move."
Advice firm Creative Benefits reported signs of potential new business in group life, with employer clients using the benefit for retention purposes.
Mark Beach, group risk specialist adviser at the firm, said: "Auto-enrolment could very well be a significant part of the picture or it could also be to do with employers feeling scared about the recession lifting and driving a more mobile labour market.
"Employers could possibly be starting to worry about the labour market freeing up and want to offer something more attractive to their employees."
According to Beach, the firm is getting more enquiries through from companies now about low-earning employees and using group life for retention purposes.
According to the Labour Market Statistics, the inactivity rate for those aged from 16 to 64 for November 2012 to January 2013 was 22.3%, down 0.3 percentage points from August to October 2012.
There were 8.95m economically inactive people aged from 16 to 64, down 118,000 from August to October 2012.
Between November 2011 to January 2012 and November 2012 to January 2013, total pay and regular pay rose by 1.2%.
However as inflation measured by the Consumer Prices Index was 2.7% between January 2012 and January 2013, there continues to be a cut in the real value of pay.
