"Figure 10: Proportion of potential hours in the labour market","" "UK","" "","" "Notes","1. The number of hours worked series is taken from the most recent labour market statistics release. 2. The number of potential extra hours that part time workers could supply by moving to full time jobs is calculated by multiplying the number of people in this position by the difference between average full-time and average part-time hours. 3. The number of potential extra hours that unemployed workers could supply is calculated by multiplying the number of unemployed people by average hours worked. 4. The number of potential extra hours that inactive workers would like to supply is calculated by multiplying the number of inactive workers who report that they would like to have a job by average hours worked. There are a number of limitations to this approach as it is broad in scope and therefore may overestimate/underestimate the number of potential hours available in the economy. For example it includes: 1. People not seeking work, but who say they would like a job and are available 2. People not seeking work, but who say they would like a job but are not available. 5. Note that these estimates are sensitive to the assumptions made in particular about the likely average hours of the unemployed and inactive. If these potential workers would prefer to work fewer hours than the current average, then the degree of labour market slack is over-stated by this measure. If, by contrast, they would prefer to work longer hours than average (for instance, because they are overwhelmingly seeking full-time work), the degree of slack on this measure would be understated. Finally, note that this analysis makes no allowance for an equilibrium rate or frictional level of unemployment. 6. All data used are published in the Labour Market Statistics release: estimates of the potential hours supplied by part-time and unemployed workers are similar to, but differ slightly from, ONS estimates of underemployment and other work in the field." "Unit","%" "","" "","Employment","PT want to work FT","Unemployment","Inactive" "2006 Q1","87.6","1.2","4.8","6.3" "2006 Q2","87.2","1.3","5.1","6.5" "2006 Q3","87.2","1.3","5.1","6.5" "2006 Q4","87.1","1.3","5.1","6.5" "2007 Q1","87.1","1.3","5.1","6.5" "2007 Q2","87.2","1.4","4.9","6.5" "2007 Q3","87.2","1.4","4.9","6.5" "2007 Q4","87.4","1.5","4.8","6.4" "2008 Q1","87.3","1.4","4.8","6.5" "2008 Q2","87.1","1.3","4.9","6.6" "2008 Q3","86.7","1.4","5.4","6.5" "2008 Q4","86.3","1.5","5.9","6.4" "2009 Q1","85.5","1.7","6.5","6.3" "2009 Q2","84.5","1.9","7.1","6.5" "2009 Q3","84.1","2.0","7.2","6.8" "2009 Q4","83.9","2.0","7.1","7.0" "2010 Q1","83.7","2.1","7.3","7.0" "2010 Q2","83.9","2.1","7.2","6.8" "2010 Q3","83.8","2.2","7.1","6.9" "2010 Q4","83.7","2.3","7.2","6.9" "2011 Q1","83.8","2.3","7.1","6.8" "2011 Q2","83.7","2.4","7.2","6.6" "2011 Q3","83.4","2.5","7.6","6.5" "2011 Q4","83.2","2.6","7.6","6.6" "2012 Q1","83.2","2.7","7.4","6.7" "2012 Q2","83.3","2.7","7.2","6.8" "2012 Q3","83.5","2.7","7.1","6.6" "2012 Q4","83.7","2.6","7.1","6.6" "2013 Q1","83.7","2.7","7.1","6.5" "2013 Q2","83.8","2.8","7.0","6.4" "2013 Q3","83.8","2.7","6.9","6.5" "2013 Q4","84.3","2.7","6.6","6.5" "2014 Q1","84.8","2.7","6.1","6.4" "2014 Q2","85.4","2.5","5.7","6.4" "2014 Q3","85.7","2.5","5.4","6.3" "2014 Q4","86.0","2.4","5.2","6.4" "2015 Q1","86.1","2.4","5.1","6.4" "2015 Q2","86.1","2.3","5.1","6.4" "2015 Q3","86.6","2.3","4.8","6.3" "2015 Q4","86.9","2.3","4.7","6.2" "2016 Q1","87.1","2.2","4.7","6.1" "2016 Q2","87.4","2.1","4.5","6.0" "2016 Q3","87.4","2.1","4.4","6.1" "2016 Q4","87.5","2.0","4.4","6.0"