The labour market statistics were published today by the Northern Ireland Statistics & Research Agency.
Payrolled employees and median earnings increased over the month
- The number of employees receiving pay through HMRC PAYE in NI in March 2025 was 810,700, an increase of 0.1% over the month and an increase 1.4% over the year.
- Earnings data from HMRC PAYE indicated that NI employees had a median monthly pay of £2,359 in March 2025, an increase of £49 (2.1%) over the month and an increase of £191 (8.8%) over the year.
- The estimates from HMRC PAYE for the latest period, are based on provisional 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 December-February 2025 was estimated from the Labour Force Survey at 1.5%. This represents a decrease of 0.2 percentage points (pps) over the quarter and a decrease of 0.7pps over the year.
- The proportion of people aged 16 to 64 in work (the employment rate) decreased by 1.3pps over the quarter and decreased by 1.4pps over the year to 71.3%.
- The total number of weekly hours worked in NI was estimated at 29.0 million hours, a decrease of 4.3% on the previous quarter and an increase of 1.6% 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 1.4pps over the quarter and increased by 1.9pps over the year to 27.5%.
Seasonally adjusted claimant count rate remains stable over the month
- In March 2025, the seasonally adjusted number of people on the claimant count was 39,700 (4.1% of the workforce), a decrease of 0.5% from the previous month’s revised figure. The March 2025 claimant count remains 33.1% 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 140 redundancies occurred in March 2025. Over the year April 2024 to March 2025, 1,770 redundancies were confirmed, which was approximately seventy percent of the figure for the previous year (2,520).
- There were 3,060 redundancies proposed in the twelve months to March 2025, which was around eighty percent of the figure for the previous year (3,890).
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 increased by 0.1% over the month and increased by 1.4% over the year. Payrolled earnings increased by 2.1% over the month and were 8.8% higher than February 2024.
- Households reported, via the Labour Force Survey (LFS), over the year to December-February 2025, decreases in both the unemployment rate (by 0.7pps to 1.5%) and the employment rate (by 1.4pps to 71.3%), while the economic inactivity rate increased by 1.9pps to 27.5%. None of these annual changes, however, were statistically significant.
- The total number of hours worked in December-February 2025 increased by 1.6% over the year, to 29.0 million hours per week, which represented a statistically significant annual change. This figure is equal to the pre-pandemic position recorded in December-February 2020 and 4.8% below the record level recorded in this time series in September-November 2019 (30.5 million hours per week).
- In March 2025, the Department was notified of 140 confirmed redundancies, bringing the rolling twelve-month total of confirmed redundancies to 1,770, approximately seventy percent of the figure for the previous year (2,520). The annual total of proposed redundancies was 3,060, around eighty percent of the figure for the previous year (3,890). 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 a small decrease of 0.5% in the claimant count estimate over the month to March 2025 from the revised figure for February 2025. The claimant count rate for March 2025 was unchanged from the revised rate for February 2025, at 4.1%. March 2025 is the ninth consecutive month that the claimant count rate has been within the range 4.0% to 4.2%.
Resource: Department for Economy NI
