It’s fair to say today’s increase in UK unemployment didn’t shock anyone. After adjusting for shifts in employment and economic inactivity, the headline rate nudged up by 0.1% to 5.2%. What did catch my eye, though, was the split beneath the surface: unemployment among men actually fell by 0.2% to 5.5%, while unemployment among women edged up by 0.1% to 4.8%. A small shift on paper, but an intriguing one that got me thinking about what might be driving it.

With more than 85% of men in full‑time roles, the drop in male unemployment suggests that employers are creating solid, stable jobs something that we don’t typically see in January and that matches the upbeat mood we saw in January’s UK PMI manufacturing data, which hit a 17‑month high. When different data sets start telling the same story, it’s usually a sign that there is something to see rather than it being just a statistical quirk.

The rise in unemployment among women paints a different picture, and it’s hard to ignore the role part‑time work plays here. With more than a third of women working part‑time, the rising unemployement likely reflects the continued impact of last year’s national insurance increase. Those rises have made part‑time employment less attractive for employers, dampening participation and, ironically, reducing tax revenues while pushing up welfare costs. A more balanced and growth orientated approach might be to lift the NI threshold by £2,500 to make part‑time hiring viable again, and offset that by increasing employer contributions for salaries above £100,000. Jobs at that level are far less sensitive to marginal cost changes, especially when every employer would also be benefitting from a £375 saving per employee.