Labour Market Report March 2023

The latest labour market statistics were published today (14th March 2023) by the Northern Ireland Statistics & Research Agency.

Payrolled employees and monthly earnings recorded an increase over the month

• The number of employees receiving pay through HMRC PAYE in NI in February 2023 was 787,200, a 0.4% increase over the month and a 2.2% increase over the year.
• Earnings from the HMRC PAYE data indicated that NI employees had a median monthly pay of £2,047 in February 2023, an increase of £10 (0.5%) over the month and an increase of £134 (7.0%) over the year.

Claimant Count Rate remains constant for tenth consecutive month

• In February 2023, the seasonally adjusted number of people on the claimant count was 35,600, a decrease of 0.1% from the previous month’s revised figure and remains 3.8% of the workforce for the tenth consecutive month.  The February claimant count remains higher than the pre-pandemic count in March 2020 by 19.5%.

Number of confirmed redundancies remains low

• NISRA, acting on behalf of the Department for the Economy, received confirmation that 20 redundancies occurred in February 2023, taking the annual total to 940, 54.4% less than in the previous 12 months.
• 440 redundancies were proposed in February 2023.  Over the year March 2022 to February 2023, 2,180 redundancies were proposed.

Statistically significant annual changes in Labour Force Survey (LFS) employment and economic inactivity rates

• 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 2023 was estimated from the Labour Force Survey at 2.4%.  This was a decrease of 0.4 percentage points (pps) over the quarter and a decrease of 0.8pps over the year.
• The proportion of people aged 16 to 64 in work (the employment rate) increased by 0.5pps over the quarter and increased by 3.1pps over the year to 71.8%.  The annual change was statistically significant. 
• The total number of weekly hours worked in NI (27.7 million) increased by 0.1% over the quarter and increased by 5.9% 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) decreased by 0.3pps over the quarter and by 2.5pps over the year to 26.4%.  The annual change was statistically significant.

The statistical bulletin and associated tables are available on the Labour Market Report - March 2023 page.

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