Unemployment rate down to 4.7%, and employment rate up in latest figures. Now down 0.5% from 5.2% peak last year. Measurement issues in the headline jobs figures, but the quality is increasing so these numbers may reflect situation better than last year’s numbers. Vacancies fell again though, lowest outside covid since 2014, but also in line with average. By sector the levels story is as would be expected - concentrated in social care/ retail and hospitality BUT they were all flat in latest quarter, retail actually added 3k vacancies. General picture of a low hire low fire low churn flat labour market, with some interesting under the hood stories. Peak in long term sickness driving fall in inactivity? Down 80k from 2.82m in Jun-Aug 2025 to 2.74m. The small has occurred amongst male workers. Female inactivity is flat. Overall still up 600k plus since pandemic. Age hit - Over 65s fastest age group adding to payrolls - up 5.6% in year to September. 25-34 yo down 1.9%. AI tech jobs challenge? Not coming through in the payroll numbers cut by age, eg for 18-24 year olds, but sectorally info & comms payroll numbers have fallen by the most of any major sector - down 2.5% over past year, bigger proportional hit than eg hospitality. Clear public-private split on growing payrolls and earnings growth.