Labour market flows: facts from the United Kingdom

In this paper I use the Labour Force Survey to obtain stylised facts about worker gross flows in the United Kingdom. I analyse the size and cyclicality of the flows between employment, unemployment and inactivity. I also examine job-to-job flows, employment separations by reason, flows between inactivity and the labour force, flows into and out of public sector employment and flows by education. I decompose contributions of job-finding and job-separation rates to fluctuations in the unemployment rate. Although the job-finding rate has been more relevant over the past ten years, the job-separation rate was particularly important during the early 1990s recession.