January proposed redundancies are over three times the 2025 monthly average

Date published: 17 February 2026

Topics: Labour Market Overview

The latest labour market statistics were published today (17th February 2026) by the Northern Ireland Statistics & Research Agency.

Payrolled employees and median earnings increased over the year

The number of employees receiving pay through HMRC PAYE in NI in January 2026 was 818,700, which was an increase of 0.2% over the month and an increase of 1.2% over the year.
Earnings data from HMRC PAYE indicated that NI employees had a median monthly pay of £2,443 in January 2026, an increase of £27 (1.1%) over the month and an increase of £138 (6.0%) over the year.
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.

The latest NI seasonally adjusted unemployment rate (the proportion of economically active people aged 16 and over who were unemployed) for the period October-December 2025 was estimated from the Labour Force Survey at 2.2%. This represents a decrease of 0.2 percentage points (pps) over the quarter and an increase of 0.6pps over the year.
The proportion of people aged 16 to 64 in work (the employment rate) increased by 0.5pps over the quarter and decreased by 0.3pps over the year to 71.9%.
The total number of weekly hours worked in NI was estimated at 29.6 million hours, an increase of 3.5% on the previous quarter and an increase of 0.2% 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) decreased by 0.3pps over the quarter and decreased by 0.2pps over the year to 26.5%.

In January 2026, the seasonally adjusted number of people on the claimant count was 36,600 (3.7% of the workforce), an increase of 4.3% from the previous month’s revised figure. The January 2026 claimant count remains 22.7% higher than the pre-pandemic count in March 2020.

NISRA, acting on behalf of the Department for the Economy, received confirmation that 100 redundancies occurred in January 2026, taking the annual total to 2,300, which was nearly twenty five percent higher than the figure for the previous year (1,850).
There were 710 proposed redundancies in January 2026, taking the annual total to 2,880, which was nearly twelve percent less than the previous year (3,270).

The statistical bulletin and associated tables are available on the Labour Market Report - February 2026 page.