Labour Market Statistics May 2025

Date published: 13 May 2025

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 Pound 2,427 in April 2025, an increase of Pound 17 (0.7%) over the month and an increase of Pound 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%.