Labour Market Report July 2025
Date published:
The latest labour market statistics were published today (17th July 2025) by the Northern Ireland Statistics & Research Agency.
Payrolled employees and median earnings decreased over the month
The number of employees receiving pay through HMRC PAYE in NI in June 2025 was 809,200, a decrease of 0.3% over the month and an increase 0.5% over the year.
Earnings data from HMRC PAYE indicated that NI employees had a median monthly pay of £2,344 in June 2025, a decrease of £28 (1.2%) over the month and an increase of £26 (1.1%) over the year. Median earnings in the latest four months may have been affected by local pay awards.
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.
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 March-May 2025 was estimated from the Labour Force Survey at 2.1%. This represents an increase of 0.6 percentage points (pps) over the quarter and an increase of 0.3pps over the year. The quarterly change was statistically significant.
The proportion of people aged 16 to 64 in work (the employment rate) increased by 0.7pps over the quarter and decreased by 0.7pps over the year to 72.1%.
The total number of weekly hours worked in NI was estimated at 30.2 million hours, an increase of 4.2% on the previous quarter and an increase of 2.9% 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 1.2pps over the quarter and increased by 0.4pps over the year to 26.3%.
Seasonally adjusted claimant count rate remains stable over the month
- In June 2025, the seasonally adjusted number of people on the claimant count was 38,500 (3.9% of the workforce), an increase of 1.0% from the previous month’s revised figure. The June 2025 claimant count remains 28.
Latest annual total of confirmed redundancies lower than previous year
NISRA, acting on behalf of the Department for the Economy, received confirmation that 300 redundancies occurred in June 2025. Over the year July 2024 to June 2025, 2,160 redundancies were confirmed, which was approximately eighty-five percent of the figure for the previous year (2,560).
There were 210 proposed redundancies in June 2025, taking the annual total to 3,030, which was almost five percent higher than the figure for the previous year (2,890).
The statistical bulletin and associated tables are available on the Labour Market Report - July 2025 page.