Labour Market Report February 2022

The latest labour market statistics were published today (15th February 2022) by the Northern Ireland Statistics & Research Agency.

Payrolled employees now higher than pre-COVID for the eighth consecutive month

The number of employees receiving pay through HMRC PAYE in NI in January 2022 was 774,900, an increase of 0.4% over the month and 5.0% over the year. This is the highest on record and the eighth consecutive month that employee numbers have been above pre-COVID levels.
Earnings from the HMRC PAYE indicated that NI employees had a median monthly pay of £1,941 in January 2022, an increase of £33 (1.7%) over the month and an increase of £155 (8.7%) over the year.

In January 2022, the seasonally adjusted number of people on the claimant count was 41,200 (4.2% of the workforce), a decrease of 900 (2.2%) from the previous month’s revised figure. The January claimant count is 35% below the recent peak in May 2020, and 35% higher than the pre-pandemic count in March 2020.

There have been 260 proposed redundancies since the beginning of 2022 (up to 14th February). This follows no, or low, proposed redundancies in each of the months September to December 2021. Over the year February 2021 to January 2022, 1,930 redundancies were proposed, 82% less than in the previous 12 months.
NISRA, acting on behalf of the Department for the Economy, received confirmation that 20 redundancies occurred in January 2022. Over the year from 1st February 2021 to 31st January 2022, 2,450 redundancies were confirmed, 54% less than in the previous year.

The latest NI seasonally adjusted unemployment rate (the proportion of economically active people aged 16 and over who were unemployed) for the period October-December 2021 was estimated from the Labour Force Survey at 2.7%. The unemployment rate decreased by 1.3 percentage points (pps) over the quarter and by 0.8pps over the year. The quarterly change was statistically significant and is likely to reflect real change.
The proportion of people aged 16 to 64 in work (the employment rate) increased by 0.5pps over both the quarter and the year to 70.7%. Neither the quarterly nor annual changes were statistically significant. Similarly, the total number of weekly hours worked in NI (27.1 million) increased by 0.9% over the quarter and by 6.3% over the 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 over the quarter (+0.5pps) and over the year (+0.1pps) to 27.3%. Neither the quarterly nor annual changes were statistically significant.

The statistical bulletin and associated tables are available on the Labour Market Report - February 2022 page.

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