Labour market overview, UK: March 2024

Estimates of employment, unemployment, economic inactivity and other employment-related statistics for the UK.

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Contact:
Email Labour Market team

Release date:
12 March 2024

Next release:
16 April 2024

2. Main points

Payrolled employees in the UK rose by 15,000 (0.0%) between December 2023 and January 2024, and rose by 386,000 (1.3%) between January 2023 and January 2024. While the number of payrolled employees continues to increase, the rate of annual growth is decreasing.

The early estimate of payrolled employees for February 2024 increased by 20,000 (0.1%) on the month and increased by 368,000 (1.2%) on the year to 30.4 million. The February 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 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 Real Time Information estimates.

In November 2023 to January 2024, the UK employment level (for those aged 16 years and over) is up on the year but down on the quarter.

The UK employment rate (for those aged 16 to 64 years) was estimated at 75.0% in November 2023 to January 2024, below estimates of a year ago and down in the latest quarter.

The UK unemployment rate (for those aged 16 years and over) was estimated at 3.9% in November 2023 to January 2024. The unemployment rate is above estimates of a year ago (November 2022 to January 2023) but largely unchanged on the latest quarter.

The UK economic inactivity rate for those aged 16 to 64 years was 21.8%, above estimates of a year ago (November 2022 to January 2023),and increased in the latest quarter.

The UK Claimant Count for February 2024 increased by 16,800 on the month and by 85,800 on the year to 1.585 million.

In December 2023 to February 2024, the estimated number of vacancies in the UK fell by 43,000 on the quarter to 908,000. Vacancies fell on the quarter for the 20th consecutive period but are still above pre-coronavirus (COVID- 19) pandemic levels.

Annual growth in total earnings (including bonuses) in Great Britain was 5.6% in November 2023 to January 2024, and annual growth in employees' average regular earnings (excluding bonuses) was 6.1%.

Annual growth in real terms (adjusted for inflation using the Consumer Prices Index including owner occupiers' housing costs (CPIH)) for total pay rose on the year by 1.4% in November 2023 to January 2024, and for regular pay rose on the year by 1.8%.

There were 203,000 working days lost because of labour disputes across the UK in January 2024. The health and social work industry showed the most working days lost this month.

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This bulletin includes data from business and social surveys, as well as data from administrative sources.

It includes a combination of National Statistics and official statistics in development and therefore we advise the consideration of this when using.

Read more in Section 5: Glossary and Section 6: Measuring the data.

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3. Latest indicators at a glance

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4. Labour market data

Summary of labour market statistics
Dataset A01 | Released 12 March 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 12 March 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.

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5. Glossary

Average weekly earnings

Average weekly earnings, detailed in our Guide to labour market statistics methodology, 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 (also known as economically inactive in our Guide to labour market statistics methodology 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. See our Guide to labour market statistics methodology for a more detailed explanation.

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. See our Guide to labour market statistics methodology for more information.

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). For more information, see our Guide to labour market statistics methodology.

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) as 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.

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6. Measuring the data

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 Real Time Information (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.

Our Comparison of labour market data sources methodologycompares 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.

Labour market in the regions of the UK

An issue has been detected in the weighting of the Labour Force Survey (LFS) for Northern Ireland for the November 2023 to January 2024 quarter only. While only Northern Ireland data are affected, as a consequence we are not publishing regional LFS figures as part of the March 2024 release in any of our releases including LFS regional data in public sector employment (PSE) and workforce jobs (WFJ).

We estimate the impact of this issue on UK LFS figures will be small – around 0.1 percentage points on headline rates – and so publication of UK data is not affected. We will aim to publish LFS regional data in our April 2024 release and regional PSE and WFJ when they are next updated in June.

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 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.

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7. 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.

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9. Cite this statistical bulletin

Office for National Statistics (ONS), released 12 March 2024, ONS website, statistical bulletin, Labour market overview, UK: March 2024

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Contact details for this Statistical bulletin

Labour Market team
labour.market@ons.gov.uk
Telephone: +44 1633 455400