1. Other pages in this release
2. Main points
Trends and considerations around comparisons.
This month's figures continue to show signs that the labour market may be cooling, with the number of vacancies still falling and unemployment rising, though earnings growth remains relatively strong.
Short-term movements varied across our different measures of employment. There were decreases in estimates of employment from the Labour Force Survey and in estimates of payrolled employees from HMRC's Real Time Information data in recent months. Today, we have also published our quarterly workforce jobs provisional estimate for March 2024, which suggests employment has increased since December 2023. These different series measure slightly different concepts and cover different time periods, with divergent trends possible for individual data points. In these instances we advise making longer term comparisons that offer more stability.
Dataset X12 sets out the annual growth rates for these measures in recent periods and suggests that the medium-term trend for employment growth is steadily weakening.
Latest data
Payrolled employees in the UK decreased by 36,000 (0.1%) between March and April 2024, but rose by 201,000 (0.7%) between April 2023 and April 2024.
The early estimate of payrolled employees for May 2024 decreased by 3,000 (0.0%) on the month but increased by 167,000 (0.6%) on the year, to 30.3 million. The May 2024 estimate should be treated as a provisional estimate and is likely to be revised when more data are received next month.
Increased volatility of Labour Force Survey (LFS) estimates, resulting from smaller achieved sample sizes, means that estimates of quarterly change should be treated with additional caution, and we recommend using them as part of our suite of labour market indicators, alongside Workforce Jobs, Claimant Count data, and Pay As You Earn (PAYE) Real Time Information (RTI) estimates.
The UK employment rate (for people aged 16 to 64 years) was estimated at 74.3% in February to April 2024, below estimates of a year ago, and decreased in the latest quarter.
In March 2024, the total Workforce Jobs (WFJ) in the UK estimate rose by 431,000 on the year to 37.2 million, with increases in both employee jobs and self-employment jobs.
The UK unemployment rate (for people aged 16 years and over) was estimated at 4.4% in February to April 2024, above estimates of a year ago, and increased in the latest quarter.
We also publish the Claimant Count, a measure of the number of people who are receiving a benefit principally for the reason of being unemployed. The UK Claimant Count for May 2024 increased on the month and on the year, to 1.629 million.
The UK economic inactivity rate for people aged 16 to 64 years was estimated at 22.3% in February to April 2024, above estimates of a year ago, and increased in the latest quarter.
In March to May 2024, the estimated number of vacancies in the UK decreased by 12,000 on the quarter to 904,000. Vacancies decreased on the quarter for the 23rd consecutive period but are still above pre-coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic levels.
Annual growth in employees' average regular earnings (excluding bonuses) in Great Britain was 6.0% in February to April 2024, and annual growth in total earnings (including bonuses) was 5.9%.
Annual growth in real terms (adjusted for inflation using the Consumer Prices Index including owner occupiers' housing costs (CPIH)) for regular pay was 2.3% in February to April 2024, and for total pay was 2.2%.
There were an estimated 17,000 working days lost because of labour disputes across the UK in April 2024.
This bulletin includes data from business and social surveys, as well as data from administrative sources. It includes a combination of accredited official statistics and official statistics in development and, therefore, we advise the consideration of this when using.
Read more in Section 6: Measuring the data
Back to table of contents3. Latest indicators at a glance
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4. Labour market data
Summary of labour market statistics
Dataset A01 | Released 11 June 2024
Labour market statistics summary data table, including earnings, employment, unemployment, redundancies and vacancies, Great Britain and UK, published monthly.
Earnings and employment from Pay As You Earn Real Time Information, seasonally adjusted
Dataset | Released 11 June 2024
Earnings and employment statistics from Pay As You Earn (PAYE) Real Time Information (RTI), seasonally adjusted. These are official statistics in development.
A guide to labour market data
Methodology | Updated 21 April 2023
Summary of labour market datasets, providing estimates of employment, unemployment, average weekly earnings, and the number of vacancies. Tables are listed alphabetically and by topic.
View all related data on our related data page.
Alternatively, Nomis provides free access to the most detailed and up-to-date UK labour market statistics.
Back to table of contents5. Glossary
Average weekly earnings
Average weekly earnings measure money paid by employers to employees in Great Britain before tax and other deductions from pay. The estimates are not just a measure of pay rises, because they also reflect, for example, changes in the overall structure of the workforce.
More high-paid jobs in the economy would have an upward effect on the earnings growth rate.
Economic inactivity
People not in the labour force are not in employment but do not meet the internationally accepted definition of unemployment. This is because they have not been seeking work within the last four weeks or they are unable to start work in the next two weeks. The economic inactivity rate is the proportion of people aged between 16 and 64 years who are not in the labour force.
Employment
Employment measures the number of people in paid work or who had a job that they were temporarily away from (for example, because they were on holiday or off sick). This differs from the number of jobs because some people have more than one job. The employment rate is the proportion of people aged between 16 and 64 years who are in employment.
Unemployment
Unemployment measures people without a job who have been actively seeking work within the last four weeks and are available to start work within the next two weeks. The unemployment rate is not the proportion of the total population who are unemployed. It is the proportion of the economically active population (people in work and those seeking and available to work) who are unemployed.
Claimant Count
The Claimant Count is an official statistic in development that measures the number of people who are receiving a benefit principally for the reason of being unemployed. Currently, the Claimant Count consists of those receiving Jobseekers' Allowance and Universal Credit claimants in the "searching for work" conditionality group.
Vacancies
Vacancies are defined as positions for which employers are actively seeking recruits from outside their business or organisation. The estimates are based on the Vacancy Survey. This is a survey of businesses designed to provide estimates of the stock of vacancies across the economy, excluding agriculture, forestry, and fishing (a small sector for which the collection of estimates would not be practical).
Pay As You Earn Real Time Information
These data come from HM Revenue and Customs' (HMRC's) Pay As You Earn (PAYE) Real Time Information (RTI) system. They cover the whole population, rather than a sample of people or companies, and they will allow for more detailed estimates of the population. The PAYE RTI statistics are official statistics in development (previously called experimental statistics) because the methodologies used to produce the statistics are still in their development phase.
In June 2023, the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) published an assessment report of HM Revenue and
Customs (HMRC) and Office for National Statistics (ONS) statistics on earnings and employment from Pay as You Earn Real Time Information (PAYE RTI). HMRC and the ONS welcome OSR's assessment report and have developed an action plan focusing on the six requirements.
A more detailed glossary is available in our Guide to labour market statistics methodology.
Back to table of contents6. Measuring the data
Official statistics
On 7 June 2024, the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) introduced the new accredited official statistics badge, to denote official statistics that have been independently review by OSR and judged to meet the standards in the Code of Practice for Statistics.
This UK labour market bulletin includes a combination of accredited official statistics and official statistics in development.
The following labour market outputs are accredited official statistics:
average weekly earnings
labour disputes
Office for National Statistics (ONS) vacancy statistics
Workforce Jobs
The following labour market outputs are official statistics in development:
Pay As You Earn (PAYE) Real Time Information (RTI) estimates
Labour Force Survey estimates
ONS Claimant Count
Labour Force Survey
We have been facing the challenge of falling response rates for household surveys, as have other comparable countries. This issue became more acute in the Labour Force Survey (LFS) data collected for August 2023. The LFS estimates due to be published in October 2023 were suspended because of quality concerns. We developed a comprehensive plan to address these concerns and reintroduce LFS, as described in our Labour Force Survey: planned improvements and its reintroduction estimates methodology.
As stated on 5 February 2024 in our Impact of reweighting on Labour Force Survey key indicators: 2024 article, from 13 February we have reinstated reweighted LFS estimates into our monthly publication. These LFS estimates are official statistics in development.
Reweighting does not address the volatility we have seen in recent periods and which we expect to see to some extent in the future, so we would advise caution when interpreting short-term changes in headline rates and recommend using them as part of our suite of labour market indicators, alongside Workforce Jobs, Claimant Count data and Pay As You Earn (PAYE) Real Time Information (RTI) estimates.
Further information on response rates and other quality-related issues for the LFS can be found in our quarterly Labour Force Survey performance and quality monitoring reports.
Our Comparison of labour market data sources methodology compares data sources and discusses some of the main differences.
Coronavirus
For more information on how labour market data sources were affected by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, see our Coronavirus and the effects on UK labour market statistics article.
Making our published spreadsheets accessible
Following the Government Statistical Service (GSS) guidance on releasing statistics in spreadsheets, we will be amending our published tables over the coming months to improve usability, accessibility and machine readability of our published statistics. To help users change to the new formats, we will be publishing sample versions of a selection of our tables and, where practical, initially publish the tables in both the new and current formats. If you have any questions or comments, please email us at labour.market@ons.gov.uk.
Labour market transformation
We have published a Labour market transformation article and a blog providing an update on the transformation of labour market statistics.
We welcome your feedback on this latest update and our plans. Please email us at labour.market. transformation@ons.gov.uk to tell us what you think
Back to table of contents7. Strengths and limitations
The estimates presented in this bulletin contain uncertainty. For more information, see our Uncertainty and how we measure it methodology.
Information on revisions is available in our Labour market statistics revisions policy.
Information on the strengths and limitations of this bulletin is available in our Labour market overview, UK: April 2021 bulletin.
Further information is available in our Guide to labour market statistics methodology.
Back to table of contents9. Cite this statistical bulletin
Office for National Statistics (ONS), released 11 June 2024, ONS website, statistical bulletin, Labour market overview, UK: June 2024