Labour market overview, UK: August 2023

• 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

The UK employment rate was estimated at 75.7% in April to June 2023, 0.1 percentage points lower than January to March 2023. The quarterly decrease in employment was driven by full-time employees and self-employed workers.

The estimate of payrolled employees for July 2023 shows a monthly increase, up 97,000 on the revised June 2023 figure, to 30.2 million. The July 2023 estimate should be treated as a provisional estimate and is likely to be revised when more data are received next month.

The unemployment rate for April to June 2023 increased by 0.3 percentage points on the quarter to 4.2%. The increase in unemployment was driven by people unemployed for up to 6 months.

The economic inactivity rate decreased by 0.1 percentage points on the quarter, to 20.9% in April to June 2023. The decrease in economic inactivity during the latest quarter was largely driven by those inactive because they are looking after family or home. Meanwhile, those inactive because of long-term sickness increased to a record high.

Flows estimates show that, between January to March 2023 and April to June 2023, there was a large net movement from economic inactivity into unemployment.

In May to July 2023, the estimated number of vacancies fell by 66,000 on the quarter to 1,020,000. Vacancies fell on the quarter for the 13th consecutive period.

Annual growth in regular pay (excluding bonuses) was 7.8% in April to June 2023, this is the highest regular annual growth rate we have seen since comparable records began in 2001. Annual growth in employees’ average total pay (including bonuses) was 8.2%; this total growth rate is affected by the NHS one-off bonus payments made in June 2023. In real terms (adjusted for inflation using Consumer Prices Index including owner occupier's housing costs (CPIH)), annual growth for total and regular pay rose on the year, by 0.5% for total pay, and by 0.1% for regular pay.

There were 160,000 working days lost because of labour disputes in June 2023. Over half of the days lost because of labour disputes in June 2023 were in the Health and Social Work sector.

Average weekly earnings

Average weekly earnings, detailed in our Guide to labour market statistics methodology, 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 (also known as economically inactive in our Guide to labour market statistics methodology 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.

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. See our Guide to labour market statistics methodology for a more detailed explanation.

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. See our Guide to labour market statistics methodology for more information.

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). For more information, see our Guide to labour market statistics methodology.

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

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 release is classed as experimental statistics (see our Guide to experimental statistics methodology), as the methodologies used to produce the statistics are still in their development phase. As a result, the series are subject to revisions.

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

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.

Labour Force Survey reweighting

The population totals used for the latest Labour Force Survey (LFS) estimates use projected growth rates from Real Time Information (RTI) data for EU and non-EU populations based on 2021 patterns. Therefore, the total population used for the LFS, does not account for any changes in migration, birth rates, death rates, and so on since June 2021. As such, levels estimates may be under- or over-estimating the true values and should be used with caution. Estimates of rates will, however, be robust.

We are planning to reweight the Labour Force Survey (LFS) published data using more up-to-date population estimates, drawing on the latest census data alongside our labour market release in October 2023. We intend to publish indicative estimates of the reweighted LFS in an article publishing in September 2023.

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 and a Transforming the LFS blog post 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.

Occupational data in Office for National Statistics (ONS) surveys

On 18 July 2022, the Office for National Statistics announced an issue with the collection of some occupational data. On 26 September 2022, we informed users of the impact of the coding error in our Impact of miscoding of occupational data article. We have undertaken a recoding exercise to correct the error and revised affected Labour Force Survey (LFS) estimates alongside the July release. For more detail on the new methodology used and its impact, see our Revision of miscoded occupational data in the ONS Labour Force Survey, UK article, released 11 July.

We have updated the Annual Population Survey estimates published on Nomis alongside the August labour market release.

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

Further information is available in our Guide to labour market statistics 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 previous bulletin, Labour market overview, UK: April 2021.