Recent data showing high job vacancies in the UK is being entirely driven by low-paid occupations, according to research. The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) think tank said around a quarter of the workforce is seeing job vacancies in occupations relevant to them at least 10 percent below pre-pandemic levels. The IFS said this means up to 8 million workers could be failing to benefit from the high vacancy levels. The outlook for jobseekers is tougher still when accounting for the fact that there are more people looking for new work and hence competing for these vacancies. Around two-thirds of unemployed jobseekers are from occupations where competition for jobs is at least 10 percent higher than it was prior to the pandemic. Xiaowei Xu, a senior research economist at the IFS and an author of the report, said: “While prominent stories about rising vacancies and labour shortages in certain areas …