SEVEN million people got a new job in 2025 – but unemployment at 5.2% is the “elephant in the room”, experts said.
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has revealed that more than seven million people started a fresh job last year, new data shows.
And as National Careers Week is under way, HMRC is reminding those starting a new job in 2026 to download the HMRC app for their essential tax and employment details.
Myrtle Lloyd, HMRC’s Chief Customer Officer, said: “Applying for a job or starting a new job can be hard work in itself. But the HMRC app provides you with handy access to everything you need to make the admin side of things a little easier – especially important for young people who may not know what information an employer requires.
“Download the HMRC app to save yourself some time and stress and avoid those first day jitters.”
But experts have warned that “the elephant in the room” is rising unemployment which is now at 5.2% in the latest figures – the highest it’s been since February 2021.
The elephant in the room
Kate Underwood, Founder at Southampton-based Kate Underwood HR and Training, said: “Seven million job moves sounds lively, but rising unemployment is the party pooper. Yes, it’s the elephant in the room. When unemployment ticks up, small businesses feel the squeeze first. Recruitment freezes. Pay gets pushback. Brilliant people hang on to ‘meh’ jobs because the market’s scarier than their manager.
“And inside your business? Anxiety goes up. Patience goes down. So do standards. This is when some employers get reckless. A quiet ‘we’ll just change their hours’ here. A handy ‘let’s perform and manage them out’ there. Spoiler: that’s how you end up with a grievance, a tribunal threat, and an expensive lesson in employment law.
“If you’re reshaping roles or tightening costs, be straight. Write it down. Do it fairly. Do it the same for everyone. Because in a wobble, inconsistency is what bites.”
Rohit Parmar-Mistry, Founder at Burton-on-Trent-based Pattrn Data, said the figures reveal “churn” rather than new jobs being created.
He added: “Seven million job starts sounds like a roaring labour market, but it also tells you something more mundane: the UK is churning. People are switching roles, taking second jobs, and cycling through short tenures. That can be healthy dynamism, or a symptom of insecurity.
“The context is the key. On the HMRC app, the bar is simple. If it reduces friction on day one, confirms tax codes, pay, and employment history quickly, it is doing the job. The bigger problem is not the app, it is the admin debt around it: employers still ask for the same details repeatedly, and people still get caught by bad data and slow corrections.
“Yes, unemployment rising is the elephant in the room. When hiring slows, every inefficiency hurts more. Digital services should not just be convenient, they should be reliable enough to prevent errors becoming weeks of lost income.”
The UK is churning
Tony Redondo, Founder at Newquay-based Cosmos Currency Exchange, said the unemployment rate for young people in the UK is higher than the EU average.
He added: “There is a circus full of elephants in the room including the highest unemployment rate since February 2021, and for the first time since comparable records began in 2005, the UK’s youth unemployment rate for 15 to 24-year-olds has surpassed the EU average in late 2025.
“The seven million new starts figure is staggering, representing roughly 20% of the UK workforce and reflects the ‘churn’ of people switching roles.”
Photo by David Kristianto on Unsplash.
