Labour Market Overview: February 2024

Headline labour market indicators, 3 months to December 2023

This headline provides a summary of the latest key statistics relating to the Welsh labour market. It includes data from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) and experimental statistics from HMRC’s Pay As You Earn Real Time Information (PAYE RTI).

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) have published reweighted LFS estimates for Wales after pausing the LFS based estimates in September 2023 following a decrease in data quality. The data has been reweighted from July to September 2022, resulting in a step change in the data. The full impact of this reweighting is detailed in the article ‘Impact of reweighting on Labour Force Survey key indicators in Wales’, linked at the bottom of this page.

Employment rate

Figure 1: Employment rate, 3 months to December 2013 to the 3 months to December 2023

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Description of Figure 1: Line chart showing the employment rate in the UK has generally been higher than in Wales over the last 10 years. 

Source: Welsh Government analysis of Labour Force Survey

Wales

The employment rate in Wales was 71.1%. This is down 1.7 percentage points on the quarter and down 0.4 percentage points on the year. 

UK

The UK employment rate was 75.0%. This is up 0.2 percentage points on the quarter and down 0.2 percentage points on the year.

Unemployment rate

Figure 2: Unemployment rate, 3 months to December 2013 to the 3 months to December 2023

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Description of Figure 2: Line chart showing the unemployment rate has decreased overall in both Wales and the UK over the last 10 years. 

Source: Welsh Government analysis of Labour Force Survey

Wales

The unemployment rate in Wales was 3.5%. This is unchanged on the quarter and down slightly on the year.

UK

The UK unemployment rate was 3.8%. This is down 0.2 percentage points on the quarter and unchanged on the year. 

Economic inactivity rate

Figure 3: Economic inactivity rate, 3 months to December 2013 to the 3 months to December 2023

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Description of Figure 3: Line chart showing the economic inactivity rate has generally decreased in the UK over the last 10 years but has seen an overall increase since early 2020. In Wales, the rate has fluctuated over this time but generally remains above the UK rate. 

Source: Welsh Government analysis of Labour Force Survey

Wales

The economic inactivity rate in Wales was 26.2%. This is up 1.7 percentage points on the quarter and up 0.6 percentage points on the year. 

UK

The UK economic inactivity rate was 21.9%. This is unchanged on the quarter and up 0.2 percentage points on the year.

Monthly paid employees and earnings from Pay As You Earn Real Time Information

The Office for National Statistics and HM Revenue & Customs publish data for Wales on payrolled employees, mean pay, aggregate pay and single month estimates for median pay.

Paid Employees

Figure 4: Payrolled Employees, Wales, January 2019 to January 2024

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Description of Figure 4: A line chart showing the trend in the number of paid employees over the past few years has been generally increasing despite a steep decrease between March 2020 and July 2020. 

Source: Welsh Government analysis of Pay As You Earn Real Time Information, Office for National Statistics and HMRC

Early estimates for January 2024 indicate that the number of paid employees in Wales has increased by 1,900 (0.1%) over the month to 1.32 million. 

At a UK level, early estimates for January 2024 showed a monthly increase of 48,200 (0.2%).

Other detailed breakdowns of paid employees including by local authority, by age and by sector are published by the Office for National Statistics.

Further information

The ONS have highlighted that the challenges with maintaining response rates for the LFS continue to affect data quality despite the reweighting of the estimates. LFS-based labour market statistics will be labelled as official statistics in development until further review and we continue to recommend caution when interpreting this data.