Business Register and Employment Survey: 2021

Main points

• In 2021 there were 1.261 million employee jobs in Wales, 0.1% higher than the figure of 1.259 million in 2020.
• For the UK, there was a 3.0% increase between 2020 and 2021.
• There were increases in all of the 12 UK countries and English regions between 2020 and 2021, with Wales having the smallest percentage increase (0.1%)
• The change in Wales between 2020 and 2021 was spread across a number of industry sectors, with the largest absolute increase in the Information and Communication sector (up 11,300) followed by the Retail sector (up 8,100). The largest fall was in the Construction sector (down 16,600).
• In 2021, the Health sector was the largest industry in Wales, accounting for 15.4% of all employee jobs, followed by 10.8% in the Manufacturing sector, 9.7% in the Retail sector and 8.9% in the Education sector.
• In 2021 there were 311,900 public sector employee jobs and 948,600 private sector employee jobs in Wales. The share of these jobs was 24.7% public and 75.3% private (in the UK this was 18.2% public and 81.8% private).

Please note that these estimates of public sector employee jobs differ to those of the official public sector employment estimates (Office for National Statistics). The official estimates should be regarded as the definitive public sector estimates for the English regions and UK countries.