Over only the last 12 months, the comparators only include one other western European economy (so if its hitting France harder, for example, it would not be mentioned), its based on what companies say (which may not be accurate, or even honest). The UK economy is weak, and a number of the other economies in the comparison are just as weak, or weaker, and the UK's unemployment rate is rising from very low levels - unemployment in 2022 was the lowest it had been since the 70s. On the other hand Germany's rate is still higher than the UK's (and has been for many years) and had been rising until recently.

The other data is which jobs have seen the greatest falls in advertised vacancies. If you look at the graph it looks compelling with programmers and management consultants at the bottom - but these are also jobs that were likely to do badly in any downturn anyway.

There are also falls in vacancies for jobs completely unrelated to AI - bar staff, vets, vehicle cleaners, boat builders.... look at the graph on Bloomberg:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-26/ai-job-cu...