UK employment rate for the three months to April was estimated at 74.3%, while the unemployment rate was estimated at 4.4%; the economic inactivity rate was 22.3%: ONS

June 11, 2024 (press release) –

Estimates of employment, unemployment, economic inactivity and other employment-related statistics for the UK.

Main points
Trends and considerations around comparisons.
This month's figures continue to show signs that the labour market may be cooling, with the number of vacancies still falling and unemployment rising, though earnings growth remains relatively strong.

Short-term movements varied across our different measures of employment. There were decreases in estimates of employment from the Labour Force Survey and in estimates of payrolled employees from HMRC's Real Time Information data in recent months. Today, we have also published our quarterly workforce jobs provisional estimate for March 2024, which suggests employment has increased since December 2023. These different series measure slightly different concepts and cover different time periods, with divergent trends possible for individual data points. In these instances we advise making longer term comparisons that offer more stability.

Dataset X12 sets out the annual growth rates for these measures in recent periods and suggests that the medium-term trend for employment growth is steadily weakening.

Latest data
Payrolled employees in the UK decreased by 36,000 (0.1%) between March and April 2024, but rose by 201,000 (0.7%) between April 2023 and April 2024.

The early estimate of payrolled employees for May 2024 decreased by 3,000 (0.0%) on the month but increased by 167,000 (0.6%) on the year, to 30.3 million. The May 2024 estimate should be treated as a provisional estimate and is likely to be revised when more data are received next month.

Increased volatility of Labour Force Survey (LFS) estimates, resulting from smaller achieved sample sizes, means that estimates of quarterly change should be treated with additional caution, and we recommend using them as part of our suite of labour market indicators, alongside Workforce Jobs, Claimant Count data, and Pay As You Earn (PAYE) Real Time Information (RTI) estimates.

The UK employment rate (for people aged 16 to 64 years) was estimated at 74.3% in February to April 2024, below estimates of a year ago, and decreased in the latest quarter.

In March 2024, the total Workforce Jobs (WFJ) in the UK estimate rose by 431,000 on the year to 37.2 million, with increases in both employee jobs and self-employment jobs.

The UK unemployment rate (for people aged 16 years and over) was estimated at 4.4% in February to April 2024, above estimates of a year ago, and increased in the latest quarter.

We also publish the Claimant Count, a measure of the number of people who are receiving a benefit principally for the reason of being unemployed. The UK Claimant Count for May 2024 increased on the month and on the year, to 1.629 million.

The UK economic inactivity rate for people aged 16 to 64 years was estimated at 22.3% in February to April 2024, above estimates of a year ago, and increased in the latest quarter.

In March to May 2024, the estimated number of vacancies in the UK decreased by 12,000 on the quarter to 904,000. Vacancies decreased on the quarter for the 23rd consecutive period but are still above pre-coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic levels.

Annual growth in employees' average regular earnings (excluding bonuses) in Great Britain was 6.0% in February to April 2024, and annual growth in total earnings (including bonuses) was 5.9%.

Annual growth in real terms (adjusted for inflation using the Consumer Prices Index including owner occupiers' housing costs (CPIH)) for regular pay was 2.3% in February to April 2024, and for total pay was 2.2%.

There were an estimated 17,000 working days lost because of labour disputes across the UK in April 2024.

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