The Office for National Statistics have recently reported fashion and textiles manufacturing employment fell slightly during the 3rd quarter of 2015 from the peaks on q1 and q2 to currently stand at 126,000. However, this figure is higher than the corresponding quarter in 2014 and before 2015.
The data shows how wearing apparel employment continues to rise, having added 12,000 people since the corresponding quarter in 2011. The long term trends for textiles employment despite the fall in the last quarter remains strong. The data reports employment within leather manufacture suffered a blip during q3 2015. Whether this is a longer term trend or due to seasonal trends will be seen in the next quarters release.
The data also picks up an interesting trend concerning employment by type. The data suggests that whilst employment is very strong (19,000 more people working for an employer since q3 2015), self-employment has risen and fallen rapidly in this period. 19,000 currently stand self-employed, down from the 30,000 in q4 2013. Much of this change has been driven by the apparel sector where whilst self-employment has been falling rapidly, the overall employment numbers have been strong.
