Labour Market Report May 2025
Date published:
The latest labour market statistics were published today (13th May 2025) by the Northern Ireland Statistics & Research Agency.
Payrolled employees decreased over the month and median earnings increased
The number of employees receiving pay through HMRC PAYE in NI in April 2025 was 810,200, a decrease of 0.1% over the month and an increase 1.1% over the year.
Earnings data from HMRC PAYE indicated that NI employees had a median monthly pay of £2,427 in April 2025, an increase of £17 (0.7%) over the month and an increase of £238 (10.9%) over the year. Median earnings in the latest two 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 January-March 2025 was estimated from the Labour Force Survey at 1.6%. This represents a decrease of 0.1 percentage points (pps) over the quarter and a decrease of 0.5pps over the year.
The proportion of people aged 16 to 64 in work (the employment rate) decreased by 0.6pps over the quarter and decreased by 1.4pps over the year to 71.6%.
The total number of weekly hours worked in NI was estimated at 29.9 million hours, an increase of 1.2% on the previous quarter and an increase of 2.5% 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 0.6pps over the quarter and increased by 1.8pps over the year to 27.2%.
Seasonally adjusted claimant count rate remains stable over the month
In April 2025, the seasonally adjusted number of people on the claimant count was 39,200 (4.0% of the workforce), an increase of 0.8% from the previous month’s revised figure. The April 2025 claimant count remains 31.1% 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 90 redundancies occurred in April 2025. Over the year May 2024 to April 2025, 1,790 redundancies were confirmed, which was just under three quarters of the figure for the previous year (2,430).
There were 150 proposed redundancies in April 2025, taking the annual total to 3,070, which was just over three quarters of the figure for the previous year (4,010).
The statistical bulletin and associated tables are available on the Labour Market Report - May 2025 page.