Labour Market Trends: August 2024

Data and Methodology

All estimates presented are sourced from the Labour Force Survey, a survey of households collected and published by the Office for Nationals Statistics with the exception of those in sections 1, 2 and 3.

Labour Force Survey

Previous revisions

An issue was detected in the weighting of the ONS Labour Force Survey for Northern Ireland for the November 2023 to January 2024 quarter only which affected the March 2024 release of the LFS estimates. This issue was resolved in the April 2024 release when the November 2023 to January 2024 figures were revised accordingly.

On 5 February 2024, ONS published a blog announcing the reintroduction of the Labour Force Survey (LFS) estimates and an article outlining how they have been affected by reweighting . These estimates were included in the main ONS release on 13 February 2024.

The new reweighted LFS estimates incorporate the latest estimates of the size and composition of the total UK population, improving the representativeness of the LFS estimates.

ONS have used the 2022 mid-year population estimates for England, Wales and Northern Ireland which incorporate the results of the 2021 Censuses of England and Wales and Northern Ireland. However the 2022 mid-year population estimates for Scotland has been calculated using the 2011 Census results to produce an updated UK population projection specifically for the purpose of LFS reweighting. 2022 Census data from Scotland will be incorporated when they become available. This underlying data affects assumptions on gender and tenure weighting. The socio-economic non-response bias adjustment remains unchanged from the previous weighting approach. Please note that although the tenure distribution was unchanged for Scotland, it should be noted that it has changed for England and Wales and therefore the UK overall.

Given time constraints, ONS have only been able to reweight the LFS data from July to September 2022 onwards. Therefore, this reweighting exercise creates a discontinuity in the series between June to August 2022 and July to September 2022 where there will be a step change in the LFS estimates apart from the headline UK estimates. ONS have modelled the seasonally adjusted UK levels of employment, unemployment and economic inactivity by sex and age-band back to June to August 2011, to ensure that headline rates and levels by sex and age-band (datasets A02SA and A05SA) can be assessed without a discontinuity. For this reason, the Scottish Government’s Labour Market Trends publication will only compare LFS estimates for Scotland and the UK from July to September 2022 onwards.

The reweighting of the LFS estimates does not address the volatility seen in the recent estimates (since May-July 2023), therefore ONS have advised that users should be cautious when interpreting quarterly changes in the LFS estimates and that these should be viewed alongside the wider suite of labour market indicators including the Claimant Count data and HMRC Pay As You Earn Real Time Information (PAYE RTI) estimates.

The longer-term solution remains the replacement of the Labour Force Survey with the Transformed Labour Force Survey (TLFS).

Labour Market Transformation

ONS are transforming the LFS. On 18 July 2024, ONS published a Labour market transformation article providing an update on both the Transformed Labour Force Survey (TLFS) and Labour Force Survey (LFS).

ONS also welcome any feedback on this latest update and their plans. Please email them at labour.market.transformation@ons.gov.uk to tell them what you think.

HMRC RTI

This release covers people paid through the HMRC’s Pay As You Earn (PAYE) system where their pay is reported through the Real Time Information (RTI) system.

Information presented in this release are experimental monthly estimates of the number of payrolled employees and their median earnings. It includes UK and geographical regions (NUTS1) early estimates of payrolled employment and median pay for the most recent month.

Statistics in this release are based on people who are employed in at least one job paid through HMRC’s PAYE system and the monthly estimates reflect the average for each day of the calendar month.

The publication and background information can be accessed on the ONS website.

Claimant Count

The experimental Claimant Count consists of claimants of Jobseekers Allowance (JSA) and some Universal Credit (UC) Claimants. The UC claimants that are included are 1) those that were recorded as not in employment (May 2013-April 2015), and 2) those claimants of Universal Credit who are required to search for work, i.e. within the Searching for Work conditionality regime as defined by the Department for Work & Pensions (from April 2015 onwards).  The denominator for the claimant count rate is the claimant count plus workforce jobs.  Estimates included in this publication are seasonally adjusted.

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 in the UK over a period of around 6 months, increasing the Claimant Count over that time.

Where can labour market data for Scotland be accessed

Labour Force information for Scotland is also published on Nomis

This release follows the ONS monthly release of Regional Labour Market Statistics in the UK

A range of Labour Market Statistics for Scotland are also published by the Office for National Statistics

Scottish Government Labour Market Statistics

Scotland's Labour Market Insights (published on 25 July 2024) is a quarterly publication summarising employment, unemployment and economic inactivity estimates sourced from a range of official labour market statistics for Scotland and the UK.

Labour Market data for 16 to 24 year olds

The Labour market data for 16 to 24 year olds in Scotland is sourced from the ONS Annual Population Survey (April 2023 to March 2024) and is published quarterly (last published on 12 June 2024).

Other SG labour market publications from the ONS Annual Population Survey:

• Disabled people in the labour market in Scotland: January to December 2022
• Job-related training in Scotland: January to December 2022
• Labour Market Statistics for Scotland by Ethnicity: January to December 2021
• Scotland's Labour Market: People, Places and Regions – Protected Characteristics. Statistics from the Annual Population Survey 2021
• Supporting documents - Scotland's Labour Market: People, Places and Regions – Protected Characteristics. Statistics from the Annual Population Survey 2021

Other SG labour market publications

• Quarterly Public Sector Employment Q1 2024
• Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings 2023
• Topical publications