Labour Market Statistics May 2025
Date published:
The labour market statistics were published today by the Northern Ireland Statistics & Research Agency.
Payrolled employees decreased over the month and median earnings increased
- The number of employees receiving pay through HMRC PAYE in NI in April 2025 was 810,200, a decrease of 0.1% over the month and an increase 1.1% over the year.
- Earnings data from HMRC PAYE indicated that NI employees had a median monthly pay of £2,427 in April 2025, an increase of £17 (0.7%) over the month and an increase of £238 (10.9%) over the year. Median earnings in the latest two months may have been affected by local pay awards.
- The estimates from HMRC PAYE for the latest period are based on early 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 January-March 2025 was estimated from the Labour Force Survey at 1.6%. This represents a decrease of 0.1 percentage points (pps) over the quarter and a decrease of 0.5pps over the year.
- The proportion of people aged 16 to 64 in work (the employment rate) decreased by 0.6pps over the quarter and decreased by 1.4pps over the year to 71.6%.
- The total number of weekly hours worked in NI was estimated at 29.9 million hours, an increase of 1.2% on the previous quarter and an increase of 2.5% 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) increased by 0.6pps over the quarter and increased by 1.8pps over the year to 27.2%.
Seasonally adjusted claimant count rate remains stable over the month
- In April 2025, the seasonally adjusted number of people on the claimant count was 39,200 (4.0% of the workforce), an increase of 0.8% from the previous month’s revised figure. The April 2025 claimant count remains 31.1% 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 April 2025. Over the year May 2024 to April 2025, 1,790 redundancies were confirmed, which was just under three quarters of the figure for the previous year (2,430).
- There were 150 proposed redundancies in April 2025, taking the annual total to 3,070, which was just over three quarters of the figure for the previous year (4,010).
Commentary
- The latest Labour Market release shows that over the year both payrolled employee numbers and earnings have increased. 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 decreased by 0.1% over the month and increased by 1.1% over the year. Payrolled earnings increased by 0.7% over the month and were 10.9% higher than April 2024.
- Households reported, via the Labour Force Survey (LFS), over the year to January-March 2025, decreases in both the unemployment rate (by 0.5pps to 1.6%) and the employment rate (by 1.4pps to 71.6%), while the economic inactivity rate increased by 1.8pps to 27.2%. None of these annual changes, however, were statistically significant.
- The total number of hours worked in January-March 2025 increased by 2.5% over the year, to 29.9 million hours per week, which represented a statistically significant annual change. This figure is 1.7% above the pre-pandemic position recorded in October-December 2019 and less than 0.1 million hours below the highest level recorded in this time series in April-June 2019 (30.0 million hours per week).
- In April 2025, the Department was notified of 90 confirmed redundancies, bringing the rolling twelve-month total of confirmed redundancies to 1,790, just under three quarters of the figure for the previous year (2,430). In addition, 150 proposed redundancies were notified to the Department in April 2025. The annual total of proposed redundancies was 3,070, just over three quarters of the figure for the previous year (4,010). 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 0.8% in the claimant count estimate over the month to April 2025 from the revised figure for March 2025. The claimant count rate for April 2025 was unchanged from the revised rate for March 2025, at 4.0%. April 2025 is the tenth 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-may-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 January-March 2025 and the quarter preceding that (i.e. October-December 2024). ‘Over the year’ refer to comparisons between the latest quarterly estimates for the period January-March 2025 and those of the corresponding quarter one year previously (i.e. January-March 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 January-March 2025 should be compared with the estimates for October-December 2024. This provides a more robust estimate than comparing with the estimates for December-February 2025, as the January and February 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 0.6pps of the quoted estimate (i.e. between 1.0% and 2.1%).
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 April 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.
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 10th June 2025.
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Responsible statistician:
Mark McFetridge,
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