Labour Market Report August 2024

The latest labour market statistics were published today (13th August 2024) by the Northern Ireland Statistics & Research Agency.

Payrolled employees increased over the month and median earnings decreased

The number of employees receiving pay through HMRC PAYE in NI in July 2024 was 807,700, an increase of 0.1% over the month and 2.3% over the year.
Earnings data from HMRC PAYE indicated that NI employees had a median monthly pay of £2,249 in July 2024, a decrease of £82 (3.5%) over the month and an increase of £164 (7.9%) over the year.
When considering the annual change in median monthly pay by industry sector, the largest percentage increases over the year were recorded in the ‘Education’ (11.9%), ‘Other service activities’ (10.9%), ‘Agriculture, forestry and fishing’ (9.6%) and ‘Arts, entertainment and recreation’ (9.2%) sectors. These sectors all had median monthly earnings below the NI average.
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.

In July 2024, the seasonally adjusted number of people on the claimant count was 41,000 (4.2% of the workforce), an increase of 6.1% from the previous month’s revised figure. The July 2024 claimant count remains 37.4% higher than the pre-pandemic count in March 2020. These increases are largely due to the increase in the administrative earnings threshold for Universal Credit in May 2024.

NISRA, acting on behalf of the Department for the Economy, received confirmation that 40 redundancies occurred in July 2024. Over the year August 2023 to July 2024, 2,550 redundancies were confirmed, which was almost double the figure for the previous year (1,340).
There were 2,820 redundancies proposed in the twelve months to July 2024, which was around three quarters of the figure for the previous year (3,940).

The latest NI seasonally adjusted unemployment rate (the proportion of economically active people aged 16 and over who were unemployed) for the period April-June 2024 was estimated from the Labour Force Survey at 1.9%. This was a decrease of 0.2 percentage points (pps) over the quarter and a decrease of 0.7pps over the year.
The proportion of people aged 16 to 64 in work (the employment rate) decreased by 0.3pps over the quarter and increased by 1.2pps over the year to 71.6%.
The total number of weekly hours worked in NI was estimated at 29.0 million hours, an increase of 2.2% on the previous quarter and an increase of 2.7% 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 0.5pps over the quarter and decreased by 0.7pps over the year to 27.1%.

The statistical bulletin and associated tables are available on the Labour Market Report - August 2024 page.

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