UK office space may be at premium as workforce reaches new high

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The size of the UK workforce has reached a new all-time high – but this could put more pressure on office space in some parts of the country.

Official data supplied by the Office for National Statistics revealed that in the three months to the end of September 2013 the number of people in work rose by 177,000 in comparison with the April to June figure. The tally is also up by 378,000 year-on-year.

This represented 0.3 per cent of those aged 16 to 64 and with 71.8 per cent of those between these ages in employment, the total UK workforce is now 29.95 million strong.

Offices all over Britain will have become busier because of the trend, apart from job centres, as unemployment dipped by 48,000 in the quarter to 2.47 million.

The continuing fall in unemployment may mean more people heading into an office each day, but that could leave some companies needing to make the most of dwindling room.

One way of doing this could be to remove data kept by means of space-consuming paper records. This could be scanned and stored electronically, making the presence of large filing cabinets and cupboards unnecessary.

The current rate of unemployment is 7.6 per cent and is expected to drop further, with the Bank of England's Quarterly Inflation Report stating this week that "recovery has finally taken hold".

It said the rate of economic growth may slow a little in the months ahead, but is likely to continue and bring the unemployment level down further as a result – a figure it is keeping a keen eye on after issuing 'forward guidance' earlier this year that interest rates will probably not rise until the jobless proportion of the workforce falls below seven per cent.

The report said the chance of this target being reached by the end of 2014 was around two in five.

That means companies for whom space is at a premium but have ambitions to expand may decide to move to larger offices if they are available. However, they might also find there are ways of making more of the space they already have – and creating more accessible and user-friendly data systems at the same time.

Storetec News/Blogs “http://www.storetec.net/news-blog/uk-office-space-may-be-at-premium-as-workforce-reaches-new-high”. UK office space may be at premium as workforce reaches new

high. November 15, 2013. Storetec.