How common is it to lose a job?

About 2.62 million individuals are jobless. How likely is it that you will end up being one of them? Michael Blastland investigates the matter for the purpose of writing his regular piece.

The unemployment rate continues to climb. People are concerned about losing their employment. But how likely is it that you will find yourself without a job? Although Go Figure does not sell crystal balls, we may look at the chances as they are right now.

The answer is around 1.5 out of every 100 times, on average.

This equates to around 1.5 percent of the working population losing their jobs every three months due to factors such as being fired, made redundant, or having their contracts expire. During the worst of the recession, this number reached almost 2 percent.

This phenomenon is referred to as the "hazard of unemployment." Although it is not normally made public, the Office of National Statistics has dug out the following information and sent it to us: (ONS).

The chart demonstrates how much it has altered, and it seems as if the line is jumping about quite a bit. And it did reach a peak during the economic downturn. However, have a look at the weights. The gap between the current state and the one it was in before the recession is around 0.2 percentage points.

That is the increased risk of moving from having a job to having no job at all, and it is equivalent to about one more person out of every 500 losing their job.

Is it a good amount?

It is unquestionably a far less number than the percentage of individuals who are occasionally stated to be afraid of it. Are our anxieties that losing a job is more likely than we think overblown, given how devastating it may be? Keep reading.

Keep in mind that every three months, another 1.5 percent to 2 percent of people quit the employment to become inactive as it is known. This hasn't changed all that much either, and it's possible that it's even gotten a little lower.

The question then is, why is it becoming worse? Because here is the other half of the story: the probability of finding employment during the next three months if you are currently without a job.

If you are currently jobless, the orange line indicates that your chances of obtaining employment over the next three months have decreased to about 20-25 percent, down from approximately 25-30 percent.

The first chart to be rescaled is the one with the blue line. Together, they evaluate the likelihood of any one person, on average, either gaining (shown by orange) or losing (represented by blue) a job.

And this is the primary reason why things are more difficult. The fact that there is a little increase in the possibility of being laid off is merely one contributory factor; the primary one is the greater challenge of obtaining new employment.

However, a technical comment is included below*. Take into consideration also the yearly change.

Therefore, if you hear on the news that "200 jobs were lost at Bloggs Bros. and that's what recession does to you," keep in mind that this is really not all that different from the usual. The opportunity to get employment once again has increased as a result of these changes.

This is due, in part, to an increase in the number of people who are of working age. In a typical scenario, an increase in the number of available jobs will absorb any more workers who enter the labor market. Not at this time, sorry.

When you convert all of these percentages into actual persons, you will find another surprise. Because the overall number of people who actually quit work due to unemployment or inactivity has always been very high, even if the likelihood of losing a job hasn't increased all that much in recent years. It's estimated that around four million individuals have left the labor field during the course of the last year.

That is, the number of people losing their jobs is far more than the additional 175,000 who have been classified as unemployed over the course of the last year.

This is due to the fact that almost four million people have returned to the labor force. Despite the growing population, there are still a significant number of individuals securing employment. Unfortunately, the number of available positions is not sufficient to absorb the additional labor force.

This enormous turnover and flow in both ways may provide some people the possibility of finding optimism that unemployment is not necessarily a hopeless situation. It affects millions of people every year, regardless of whether or not there is a recession. The majority of people do not plan to end their careers in jobless. It's possible that this is another another reason why we need to pay closer attention to the exceptions.

Because none of this will bring you any solace if you are one of the many people who are unable to locate or regain employment. Also, keep in mind that the numbers shown below are averages. People who have lower educational credentials, for example, have a higher likelihood of becoming unemployed than those who have higher educational qualifications. And for some, the odds of finding it are lower than the average.

One more nugget of wisdom picked up from all of those risk assessments. If you are currently without job, your chances of finding new employment fluctuate during the course of the year. There are variations based on the seasons.

The encouraging news is that it seems as if the likelihood will increase as we get closer to the end of the year. The unfortunate news is that it seems as if it will tumble once again not long after that.

The hazard of unemployment is not an official statistic; nevertheless, it may be estimated with the use of the Labour Force Survey, which is the primary source for the majority of the official data we have on unemployment. In addition to that, there is a new set of experimental data that is being compiled with the purpose of capturing the dynamics of the labor market. You may learn about them on this page, however the hazard rates are not given and are not typically disclosed in the scientific literature.

The hazard ratios in each direction are proportions of various values. * This is an obscure comment from the technical side of things. That instance, if one percent of persons who are working find themselves without work, that is one percent of around 29 million people. But even if just one percent of those now without jobs get employment, it still represents around 2.6 million people. Because of this, comparing the two lines on one chart is not an effective approach to compare the overall numbers of people impacted; rather, it just compares the probability for one individual.

Even yet, the change in the likelihood of getting a job adds up to a great deal more people than the change in the risk of losing one, which is the primary reason for the rise in the rate of unemployment. If we consider of the percentages simply as representing the possibility that something will happen to any person on average, then I believe it is appropriate to compare them using the same scale.

Just picture a queue of one hundred individuals looking for work. In around three months, approximately 20 to 25 of them will, on average, be working. Imagine a queue of one hundred individuals who all have jobs right now. In the next three months, there will be one or two people without work. If you're thinking, "Will it happen to me?" that formulation of the average risk is probably the most helpful approach to think about it. Naturally, the specifics of each work will be unique in their own unique way. I've also made an effort to keep things as straightforward as possible by excluding specifics regarding the flows around inactivity, which I don't believe have any bearing on the primary focus of the research.