NI Claimant Count down 8.4% over the year
Date published:
The latest labour market statistics were published today (18th August 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 July 2026 was 819,900, which was unchanged over the month and an increase of 1.1% over the year.
Earnings data from HMRC PAYE indicated that NI employees had a median monthly pay of £2,498 in July 2026, an increase of £15 (0.6%) over the month and an increase of £129 (5.4%) 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.
Labour Force Survey headline measures
The headline estimates of unemployment, employment and economic inactivity come from the Labour Force Survey. There have been small changes in each of the headline estimates over the quarter and year, however none of these changes are statistically significant.
The latest NI seasonally adjusted unemployment rate (the proportion of economically active people aged 16 and over who were unemployed) for the period April-June 2026 was estimated from the Labour Force Survey at 2.0%. This represents a decrease of 0.1 percentage points (pps) over the quarter and a decrease of 0.4pps over the year.
The proportion of people aged 16 to 64 in work (the employment rate) decreased by 0.4pps over the quarter and increased by 0.5pps over the year to 72.0%. The number of employed people (age 16 and over) in NI was estimated at 898,000, unchanged from the last quarter and an increase of 4,000 from the same period last year.
The total number of weekly hours worked in NI was estimated at 29.7 million hours, an increase of 0.9% on the previous quarter and a decrease of 0.7% 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 0.4pps over the quarter and decreased by 0.2pps over the year to 26.4%.
Seasonally adjusted claimant count rate decreases over the month
In July 2026, the seasonally adjusted number of people on the claimant count was 33,300 (3.3% of the workforce), a decrease of 2.9% from the previous month’s revised figure. The July 2026 claimant count remains 11.5% higher than the pre-pandemic count in March 2020.
Latest annual total of confirmed redundancies considerably lower than previous year
NISRA, acting on behalf of the Department for the Economy, received confirmation that 40 redundancies occurred in July 2026, taking the annual total to 1,390, which was over forty percent less than the figure for the previous year (2,370).
There were 2,780 redundancies proposed in the twelve months to July 2026, which was nearly seven percent less than the previous year (2,980).
The statistical bulletin and associated tables are available on the Labour Market Report - August 2026 page.