Labour market overview, UK: December 2024

• Average weekly earnings in Great Britain

• Earnings and employment from Pay As You Earn Real Time Information, UK

• Employment in the UK

• Labour market in the regions of the UK

• Vacancies and jobs in the UK

• Public Sector Employment

Latest data

Estimates for payrolled employees in the UK increased by 24,000 (0.1%) between September and October 2024, and rose by 140,000 (0.5%) between October 2023 and October 2024. 

Payrolled employees fell by 22,000 (0.1%) over the quarter but rose by 160,000 (0.5%) over the year, when looking at August to October 2024. This is the period comparable with our Labour Force Survey (LFS) estimates.

The early estimate of payrolled employees for November 2024 decreased by 35,000 (0.1%) on the month and increased by 76,000 (0.3%) on the year to 30.4 million. The November 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 LFS estimates, resulting from smaller achieved sample sizes, means that estimates of change should be treated with additional caution. We recommend using them as part of our suite of labour market indicators, alongside Workforce Jobs (WFJ), 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 74.9% in August to October 2024. This is largely unchanged on a year ago, but up in the latest quarter.

The UK unemployment rate for people aged 16 years and over was estimated at 4.3% in August to October 2024. This is above estimates of a year ago, and up in the latest quarter.

The UK economic inactivity rate for people aged 16 to 64 years was estimated at 21.7% in August to October 2024. This is below estimates of a year ago, and down in the latest quarter.

The estimated number of workforce jobs was 36.8 million in September 2024, an increase of 73,000 (0.2%) from June 2024. There were increases in both employee jobs and self-employment.

The UK Claimant Count for November 2024 increased both on the month and on the year, to 1.769 million.

The estimated number of vacancies in the UK decreased by 31,000 on the quarter to 818,000 in September to November 2024. Vacancies decreased on the quarter for the 29th consecutive period but are still above pre-coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic levels.

Annual growth in employees’ average earnings for both regular (excluding bonuses) and total earnings (including bonuses) in Great Britain was 5.2% in August to October 2024. 

Annual growth in real terms, adjusted for inflation using the Consumer Prices Index including owner occupiers' housing costs (CPIH), was 2.2% for both regular and total pay in August to October 2024.

There were an estimated 42,000 working days lost because of labour disputes across the UK in October 2024.

In this section, we supply additional commentary to help users assess the different sources of data we publish on employment and related indicators.

We are publishing reweighted Labour Force Survey (LFS) data in this month's bulletin. We are also revising our Workforce Jobs (WFJ) estimates, which include incorporating the reweighted LFS and implementing our annual benchmarking to the latest estimates from the Business Register and Employment Survey. The LFS reweighting partially closes the gap between our employment indicators, but does not address the volatility that we are currently seeing in LFS estimates.

Figure 1 shows the annual growth rates in a selection of our different employment indicators, with annual growth rates giving a more stable, longer-term view on changes. The Labour Force Survey (LFS) is our survey of households, while Workforce Jobs (WFJ) is based mainly on business surveys for employee jobs, with the LFS covering self-employed jobs. HM Revenue and Customs's Pay As You Earn (PAYE) Real Time Indicators (RTI) data are derived from administrative tax records and only covers payrolled employees.

Each of these sources are collected and processed in different ways so we do expect differences in levels, for example, jobs versus people, while divergent trends between individual periods are also possible. Further detail on how best to compare these different sources can be found in Coherence of data sources in Section 7: Data sources and quality and in our Comparison of labour market sources article.

There have been ongoing challenges in assessing the coherence between these statistics in recent months, as we have described. Annual growth ranges from 0.5% for payrolled employees up to 1.1% for LFS employees, for the datasets available in the latest period. Annual growth in the latest measures from RTI and WFJ have continued to slow. The LFS has also slowed in the recent periods. Estimates from LFS are still affected by increased volatility and base effects, since we are comparing with periods of low response rates.

As outlined in our previous Labour market overviews, the longer-term broad coherence between RTI and WFJ, when looking at annual change, suggests that these sources are likely provide a more reliable estimate of employment, particularly for employees. These sources continue to indicate that we have seen a sustained moderation of growth in employment over the last year. RTI and WFJ also show less volatility than the LFS over the same time period.

Despite these coherence challenges, the LFS continues to be the sole source of data for unemployment, economic inactivity and self-employment, and provides a range of breakdowns that are only possible from LFS data.

We are continuing to improve the quality of the LFS, building on our work to date. This has led to an increase in achieved interviews from 44,238 in July to September 2023 to 59,139 in July to September 2024, as shown in our LFS performance and quality monitoring report: July to September 2024 methodology.

We continue to advise caution, particularly when interpreting short-term change in the LFS. We encourage users to make use of a wide range of data sources, where possible.

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.

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. The Labour Force Survey estimates are official statistics in development.

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. The Labour Force Survey estimates are official statistics in development.

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. The Labour Force Survey estimates are official statistics in development.

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 Jobseeker's 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 HMRC and Office for National Statistics (ONS) statistics on earnings and employment from 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.

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.

Accredited 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 reviewed by the OSR. Accredited official statistics comply with the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics.

This UK labour market bulletin includes a combination of accredited official statistics and official statistics in development (until September 2023, these were called "experimental statistics"). Read more about the change in our Guide to official statistics in development.

The following labour market outputs are accredited official statistics:

• Labour disputes (rapid review completed by the OSR in February 2023)
• Vacancy statistics (reviewed by the OSR in April 2022)
• Workforce Jobs (WFJ) (reviewed by the OSR in April 2022)

The following labour market outputs are official statistics in development:

• Labour Force Survey (LFS) 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 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 methodology. We reinstated reweighted LFS estimates into our monthly publication from February 2024, as described in our Impact of reweighting on LFS key indicators: 2024 article.

In December 2024, we carried out a further LFS reweighting exercise, based on 2022 mid-year estimates. The population estimates used do not consider the most recent estimates of migration published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in November 2024.

As external sources suggest that recent increases in LFS measures of employment are likely to be overstating underlying employment growth, we expect that underlying changes in the other labour market statuses will also be affected. For example, the more modest growth we see in alternative employment sources may indicate that unemployment and economic inactivity may have moved less than the LFS has recently suggested.

It is likely that some of the recent movements in LFS estimates are also being affected by the increased sample size and changes in data collection methods introduced over the last year, in addition to any underlying changes in the labour market.

The wave structure of the LFS means that any changes in sampling can take a substantial amount of time to fully feed through the survey. We interview sampled households at quarterly intervals for five consecutive quarters. Any given three-month dataset includes respondents completing their first, second, third, fourth, or fifth interview (often called "waves").

Between July and December 2023, the Wave 1 sample for the LFS was reduced to its pre-coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic level, before the boost was reinstated from January 2024. This reduction in the sample stays in our LFS datasets for five quarters, as these smaller cohorts progress through subsequent waves, all the way to Wave 5. From July 2024, the smaller cohorts are steadily being replaced by boosted cohorts. However, it will not be until the January to March 2025 period (published in May 2025) when LFS data only include boosted cohorts.

Reweighting does not address the volatility we have seen in recent periods and which we expect to see to some extent in the future. We would advise caution when interpreting changes in headline rates and recommend using them as part of our suite of labour market indicators, alongside WFJ, Claimant Count data and PAYE 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.

Coherence of data sources

Understanding coherence challenges around the LFS continues to be a priority. Reweighting has improved the coherence picture, as strong population growth in recent years is now incorporated into our estimates of all three labour market statuses.

We are looking to refresh our work on reconciling estimates of employment from the LFS and WFJ. This work makes several adjustments to both LFS and WFJ estimates to try and account for known differences in concepts, coverage, and measurement.

Before the pandemic, these adjustments could explain around 40% to 50% of the gap in jobs measured by the two sources. However, this percentage had decreased to below 30% when last published in 2022.

These adjustments are based on a range of assumptions and data sources, some of which are now relatively dated. Therefore, we are starting work to refresh these data sources and assumptions where possible. This will help us to understand the extent to which recent divergence in trends can be explained by known differences between the sources.

We are also considering how to best consider coherence between HMRC's PAYE RTI data and WFJ. As the former is essentially focused on employees, we recommend comparison with the employee jobs component of WFJ to align coverage of populations. One other important difference is that the RTI statistics published each month are a measure of people, rather than jobs, as in WFJ. One option is to look at data published annually by HMRC on "employments", which are conceptually closer to jobs. Though only available up to the end of 2023, making this comparison between WFJ employee jobs and RTI employments suggests good coherence between these two sources in recent years.

Our Comparison of labour market data sources methodology compares data sources and discusses some of the main differences.

Labour market transformation

We have provided an update on the transformation of labour market statistics in our Labour market transformation - update on progress and plans: December 2024 article.

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.

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.

Country of birth and nationality labour market outputs

The RTI adjustment applied from January to March 2020 to June to August 2022 was removed from the LFS weighting methodology as part of the reweighting exercise in December 2024, as described in our Impact of reweighting on LFS key indicators: December 2024 article. Comparisons with alternative data sources have raised data concerns with the labour market breakdowns by country of birth and nationality since the pandemic period.

We have therefore removed the labour market status by country of birth and nationality from our A01: Summary of labour market statistics dataset and from tables accompanying our Labour market overview and Employment in the UK bulletins. Our EMP06: Employment by country of birth and nationality dataset and A12: Employment, unemployment and economic inactivity by nationality and country of birth dataset will still be made available on our website, with additional guidance for users.

Our next update will be published in February 2025, which will incorporate the LFS reweighted data. From the February 2025 publication, the country of birth and nationality labour market data will be withdrawn from our time series data. We will continue to review and update users accordingly.

Pre-release data

The Bank of England were granted exceptional pre-release access to our Labour market overview, UK: December 2024 bulletin and accompanying tables at 8:30am on Monday 16 December 2024. This was so that the data were available for the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting held on that day. For further information, see the Exchange of letters requesting exceptional pre-release access.