Labour Market Statistics March 2025
Date published:
The labour market statistics were published today by the Northern Ireland Statistics & Research Agency.
Payrolled employee numbers increased over the month whilst earnings decreased
- The number of employees receiving pay through HMRC PAYE in NI in February 2025 was 809,300, an increase of 0.2% over the month and an increase 1.3% over the year.
- Earnings data from HMRC PAYE indicated that NI employees had a median monthly pay of £2,295 in February 2025, a decrease of £2 (0.1%) over the month and an increase of £137 (6.3%) over the year.
- The estimates from HMRC PAYE for the latest period, are based on provisional data and, therefore, are more likely to be subject to larger revisions.
Labour Force Survey headline measures
- The latest NI seasonally adjusted unemployment rate (the proportion of economically active people aged 16 and over who were unemployed) for the period November-January 2025 was estimated from the Labour Force Survey at 1.5%. This was unchanged over the quarter and a decrease of 0.7 percentage points (pps) over the year.
- The proportion of people aged 16 to 64 in work (the employment rate) was unchanged over the quarter and decreased by 0.5pps over the year to 72.2%.
- The total number of weekly hours worked in NI was estimated at 29.2 million hours, a decrease of 1.8% on the previous quarter and an increase of 1.9% on the equivalent period last year.
- The economic inactivity rate (the proportion of people aged 16 to 64 who were not working and not seeking or available to work) was unchanged over the quarter and increased by 1.0pps over the year to 26.6%.
Increase in the seasonally adjusted claimant count rate over the month
- In February 2025, the seasonally adjusted number of people on the claimant count was 40,800 (4.2% of the workforce), an increase of 3.0% from the previous month’s revised figure. The February 2025 claimant count remains 36.5% higher than the pre-pandemic count in March 2020.
Latest annual total of proposed and confirmed redundancies considerably lower than previous year
- NISRA, acting on behalf of the Department for the Economy, received confirmation that 90 redundancies occurred in February 2025. Over the year March 2024 to February 2025, 1,880 redundancies were confirmed, which was approximately three-quarters of the figure for the previous year (2,430).
- There were 150 proposed redundancies in February 2025, taking the annual total to 3,060, which was around four-fifths of the figure for the previous year (3,920).
Quarterly Employment Survey (QES) headline measures
- Businesses reported that employee jobs increased over the quarter (0.2%) and increased over the year (1.6%) to 832,180 jobs in December 2024.
Commentary
- The latest Labour Market release shows that over the year both payrolled employee numbers and earnings have increased, while employee jobs have also increased to a new series high. From the Labour Force Survey, the unemployment rate saw a decrease. However, the employment rate has also decreased, and the economic inactivity rate has increased.
- The latest HMRC payroll data shows that payrolled employees increased by 0.2% over the month and increased by 1.3% over the year. Payrolled earnings decreased by 0.1% over the month and were 6.3% higher than February 2024.
- Households reported, via the Labour Force Survey (LFS), over the year to November-January 2025, decreases in both the unemployment rate (by 0.7pps to 1.5%) and the employment rate (by 0.5pps to 72.2%), while the economic inactivity rate increased by 1.0pps to 26.6%. None of these annual changes, however, were statistically significant.
- The total number of hours worked in November-January 2025 increased by 1.9% over the year, to 29.2 million hours per week. This figure is 0.2% above the pre-pandemic position recorded in November-January 2020 and 2.0% below the record level recorded in this time series in August-October 2019 (29.8 million hours per week).
- Businesses reported, via the Quarterly Employment Survey, that employee jobs in NI increased over the quarter and the year to reach a new series high of 832,180 in December 2024. Quarterly increases in employee jobs were seen within the manufacturing, construction and services sectors. A quarterly decrease was seen within the other industry sector. Employee jobs within the manufacturing and services sectors reached new series highs in December 2024. There were increases in employee jobs over the year within the manufacturing, construction, services and other industry sectors to December 2024.
- In February 2025, the Department was notified of 90 confirmed redundancies, bringing the rolling twelve-month total of confirmed redundancies to 1,880, approximately three-quarters of the figure for the previous year (2,430). There were also 150 proposed redundancies reported to the Department in February 2025 which brought the annual total to 3,060, around four-fifths of the figure for the previous year (3,920). Both the twelve-month totals of proposed and confirmed redundancies are similar to the levels seen in the decade preceding the pandemic.
- Finally, there was an increase of 3.0% in the claimant count estimate over the month to February 2025 from the revised figure for January 2025. The claimant count rate for February 2025 increased to 4.2% from the revised rate for January 2025 (4.0%). February 2025 is the eighth consecutive month that the claimant count rate has been within the range 4.0% to 4.2%.
Notes to editors:
- The statistical report and associated tables are available at: https://www.nisra.gov.uk/publications/labour-market-report-march-2025
- The Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency wishes to thank the participating households and businesses for their co-operation in agreeing to take part in the surveys and for facilitating the collection of the relevant data.
‘Over the quarter’ refer to comparisons between the latest quarterly estimates for the period November-January 2025 and the quarter preceding that (i.e. August-October 2024). ‘Over the year’ refer to comparisons between the latest quarterly estimates for the period November-January 2025 and those of the corresponding quarter one year previously (i.e. November-January 2024). Changes that are significant in a statistical sense (i.e. where the estimated change exceeded the variability expected from a sample survey of this size and was likely to reflect real change) are specifically highlighted.
Estimates relating to November-January 2025 should be compared with the estimates for August-October 2024. This provides a more robust estimate than comparing with the estimates for October-December 2024, as the November and December data are included within both estimates.
The official measure of unemployment is from the Labour Force Survey. This measure of unemployment relates to people without a job who were available for work and had either looked for work in the last four weeks or were waiting to start a job. This is the International Labour Organisation definition. Labour Force Survey estimates are subject to sampling error. This means that the exact figure is likely to be contained in a range surrounding the estimate quoted. For example, the unemployment rate is likely to fall within 0.5pps of the quoted estimate (i.e. between 1.0% and 2.0%).
The claimant count is an administrative data source derived from Jobs and Benefits Offices systems, which records the number of people claiming unemployment-related benefits. In March 2018, the NI claimant count measure changed from one based solely on Jobseekers Allowance (JSA) to an experimental measure based on JSA claimants and out-of-work Universal Credit (UC) claimants who were claiming principally for the reason of being unemployed. Those claiming unemployment-related benefits (either UC or JSA) may be wholly unemployed and seeking work or may be employed but with low income and/or low hours, that make them eligible for unemployment-related benefit support. Under UC a broader span of claimants became eligible for unemployment-related benefit than under the previous benefit regime.
Redundancies are provided by companies under the Employment Rights (Northern Ireland) Order 1996 (Amended 8 October 2006) whereby they are legally required to notify the Department of impending redundancies of 20 or more employees. Companies who propose fewer than 20 redundancies are not required to notify the Department, therefore the figures provided are likely to be an underestimate of total job losses, however, it is not possible to quantify the extent of the shortfall. All other things being equal we would expect more redundancies in sectors dominated by large businesses as they are the businesses that meet the 20 or more collective redundancy criteria.
- To prevent the potential identification of individual businesses, redundancy totals relating to fewer than three businesses are not disclosed. The Statistical Disclosure Control Policy is available here: https://www.nisra.gov.uk/publications/redundancies-background-information. Where the number of businesses does not meet the threshold for release (as detailed in the Statistical Disclosure Control Policy), individual monthly totals are not published.
HMRC’s Pay As You Earn (PAYE) Real Time Information (RTI) system is an administrative data source. The PAYE RTI system is the system employers use to take Income Tax and National Insurance contributions before they pay wages to employees. These data relate to employees paid by employers only, and do not include self-employment income.
Estimates of the number of paid employees and employee earnings from PAYE are classed as official statistics in development as they are still in their development phase. As a result, the data are subject to revisions. Early estimates (flash estimates) for February 2025 are based on around 85% of information and will be subject to revision in the next month’s release when between 98% and 99% of data will be available (main estimates). The size of revisions to main and flash estimates are similar for employees, while revisions to earnings flash estimates are typically larger than main estimate revisions. The HMRC PAYE covers the whole population rather than a sample of employees or companies. Data are based on where employees live and not the location of their place of work within the UK. Data are seasonally adjusted but not adjusted for inflation.
Employee jobs figures are taken from the Quarterly Employment Survey, a survey of public sector organisations and private sector firms. Headline totals for employee jobs are seasonally adjusted. Estimates for industry sub-sections at 2-digit SIC level are not adjusted for seasonality. The QES survey date was 2nd December 2024.
The Labour Market Report will be of interest to policy makers, public bodies, the business community, banks, economic commentators, academics, and the general public with an interest in the local economy.
The next scheduled release of the Labour Market Report will be published on the NISRA website on Tuesday 15th April 2025.
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Responsible statistician:
Mark McFetridge,
Economic & Labour Market Statistics (ELMS),
Mark.McFetridge@nisra.gov.uk or Tel: 028 902 55172.