Labour market overview, UK - Office for National Statistics (2024)

• Average weekly earnings in Great Britain

• Earnings and employment from Pay As You Earn Real Time Information, UK

• Employment in the UK

• Labour market in the regions of the UK

• Vacancies and jobs in the UK

• Labour market transformation - update on progress and plans: July 2024

Trends and considerations around comparisons

This month's labour market figures continue to show signs of gradual cooling, with the number of vacancies still falling and unemployment rising. Earnings growth remains relatively strong although lower than a few months ago.

Short-term movements varied across our different measures of employment. Recent months saw decreases in estimates of employment from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) and increases in estimates of payrolled employees from HMRC's Real Time Information (RTI) data. 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.

Our Annual growth rate comparisons dataset, which includes comparisons of HMRC RTI, and LFS estimates, sets out the annual growth rates for these measures in recent periods and suggests that the medium-term trend for employment growth is weakening.

Latest data

Estimates for payrolled employees in the UK increased by 54,000 (0.2%) between April and May 2024, and rose by 265,000 (0.9%) between May 2023 and May 2024.

The early estimate of payrolled employees for June 2024 increased by 16,000 (0.1%) on the month and increased by 241,000 (0.8%) on the year, to 30.4 million. The June 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. 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 74.4% in March to May 2024, below estimates of a year ago, and decreased in the latest quarter.

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

The UK economic inactivity rate for people aged 16 to 64 years was estimated at 22.1% in March to May 2024, above estimates of a year ago, but decreased in the latest quarter.

The UK Claimant Count for June 2024 increased on the month and on the year, to 1.663 million.Commencing in May 2024, the Department for Work and Pensions are rolling out an increase in the administrative earnings threshold for full work search conditionality. This change is likely to affect around 180,000 claimants over a period of around 6 months, increasing the Claimant Count over that time.

In April to June 2024, the estimated number of vacancies in the UK decreased by 30,000 on the quarter to 889,000. Vacancies decreased on the quarter for the 24th 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 5.7% in March to May 2024, and annual growth in total earnings (including bonuses) was 5.7%.

Annual growth in real terms (adjusted for inflation using the Consumer Prices Index including owner occupiers' housing costs (CPIH)) for regular pay was 2.5% in March to May 2024, and for total pay was 2.2%.

There were an estimated 49,000 working days lost because of labour disputes across the UK in May 2024.

View all related data on our related data page.

Alternatively, Nomis provides free access to the most detailed and up-to-date UK labour market statistics.

Average weekly earnings

Average weekly earnings measure money paid by employers to employees in Great Britain before tax and other deductions from pay. The estimates are not just a measure of pay rises, because they also reflect, for example, changes in the overall structure of the workforce.

More high-paid jobs in the economy would have an upward effect on the earnings growth rate.

Economic inactivity

People not in the labour force are not in employment but do not meet the internationally accepted definition of unemployment. This is because they have not been seeking work within the last four weeks or they are unable to start work in the next two weeks. The economic inactivity rate is the proportion of people aged between 16 and 64 years who are not in the labour force. The Labour Force Survey estimates are official statistics in development.

Employment

Employment measures the number of people in paid work or who had a job that they were temporarily away from (for example, because they were on holiday or off sick). This differs from the number of jobs because some people have more than one job. The employment rate is the proportion of people aged between 16 and 64 years who are in employment. The Labour Force Survey estimates are official statistics in development.

Unemployment

Unemployment measures people without a job who have been actively seeking work within the last four weeks and are available to start work within the next two weeks. The unemployment rate is not the proportion of the total population who are unemployed. It is the proportion of the economically active population (people in work and those seeking and available to work) who are unemployed. The Labour Force Survey estimates are official statistics in development.

Claimant Count

The Claimant Count is an official statistic in development that measures the number of people who are receiving a benefit principally for the reason of being unemployed. Currently, the Claimant Count consists of those receiving Jobseekers' Allowance and Universal Credit claimants in the "searching for work" conditionality group.

Vacancies

Vacancies are defined as positions for which employers are actively seeking recruits from outside their business or organisation. The estimates are based on the Vacancy Survey. This is a survey of businesses designed to provide estimates of the stock of vacancies across the economy, excluding agriculture, forestry, and fishing (a small sector for which the collection of estimates would not be practical).

Pay As You Earn Real Time Information

These data come from HM Revenue and Customs' (HMRC's) Pay As You Earn (PAYE) Real Time Information (RTI) system. They cover the whole population, rather than a sample of people or companies, and they will allow for more detailed estimates of the population. The PAYE RTI statistics are official statistics in development (previously called experimental statistics) because the methodologies used to produce the statistics are still in their development phase.

In June 2023, the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) published an assessment report of HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and Office for National Statistics (ONS) statistics on earnings and employment from Pay as You Earn Real Time Information (PAYE RTI). HMRC and the ONS welcome OSR's assessment report and have developed an action plan focusing on the six requirements.

A more detailed glossary is available in our Guide to labour market statistics methodology.

Official statistics

On 7 June 2024, the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) introduced the new accredited official statistics badge, to denote official statistics that have been independently review by OSR and judged to meet the standards in the Code of Practice for Statistics.

This UK labour market bulletin includes a combination of accredited official statistics and official statistics in development.

The following labour market outputs are accredited official statistics:

• Average weekly earnings

• Labour disputes

• Office for National Statistics (ONS) vacancy statistics

• Workforce Jobs

The following labour market outputs are official statistics in development:

• Pay As You Earn (PAYE) Real Time Information (RTI) estimates

• Labour Force Survey estimates

• ONS Claimant Count

Labour Force Survey

We have been facing the challenge of falling response rates for household surveys, as have other comparable countries. This issue became more acute in the Labour Force Survey (LFS) data collected for August 2023. The LFS estimates due to be published in October 2023 were suspended because of quality concerns. We developed a comprehensive plan to address these concerns and reintroduce LFS, as described in our Labour Force Survey: planned improvements and its reintroduction estimates methodology.

As stated on 5 February 2024 in our Impact of reweighting on Labour Force Survey key indicators: 2024 article, from 13 February we have reinstated reweighted LFS estimates into our monthly publication. These LFS estimates are official statistics in development.

Reweighting does not address the volatility we have seen in recent periods and which we expect to see to some extent in the future, so we would advise caution when interpreting short-term changes in headline rates and 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.

As stated in our article published 18 July 2024, we are planning a further reweighting exercise, based on the population projections published in January 2024. We plan to introduce the reweighted LFS series into our Labour Market publication by the end of 2024.

Further information on response rates and other quality-related issues for the LFS can be found in our quarterly Labour Force Survey performance and quality monitoring reports.

Our Comparison of labour market data sources methodology compares data sources and discusses some of the main differences.

Coronavirus

For more information on how labour market data sources were affected by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, see our Coronavirus and the effects on UK labour market statistics article.

Making our published spreadsheets accessible

Following the Government Statistical Service (GSS) guidance on releasing statistics in spreadsheets, we will be amending our published tables over the coming months to improve usability, accessibility and machine readability of our published statistics. To help users change to the new formats, we will be publishing sample versions of a selection of our tables and, where practical, initially publish the tables in both the new and current formats. If you have any questions or comments, please email us at labour.market@ons.gov.uk.

Labour market transformation

We have published a Labour market transformation article providing an update on the transformation of labour market statistics.

We welcome your feedback on this latest update and our plans. Please email us at labour.market.transformation@ons.gov.uk to tell us what you think.

The estimates presented in this bulletin contain uncertainty. For more information, see our Uncertainty and how we measure it methodology.

Information on revisions is available in our Labour market statistics revisions policy.

Information on the strengths and limitations of this bulletin is available in our Labour market overview, UK: April 2021 bulletin.

Further information is available in our Guide to labour market statistics methodology.