Employment Change

UK Employment Change is the headline move in employed people aged 16 and over for the United Kingdom. It compares one 3-month seasonally adjusted level with the previous non-overlapping 3-month level. The Office for National Statistics publishes it in Table 1 of the Employment in the UK bulletin, drawn from the Labour Force Survey. The survey covers about 29000 private households and 63000 people each quarter and gives the official employment measure.

Levels are stated in thousands, and employees and self-employed people together exceed 99% of all in work. It counts people rather than jobs, so a person with 2 jobs counts a single time. It differs from the Claimant Count, a benefits count that can include some low-paid workers in work. It also differs from the unemployment rate, a separate jobless share.

ONS releases rolling 3-month estimates every month on a calendar announced 12 months ahead, normally around 7am. Each release rests on interviews spread across a 3-month window, with answers tied to a 7-day reference week. It appears with weekly pay, vacancies, hours, unemployment, inactivity, public-sector employment and regional labour market data. LFS series are usually revised once a year, covering about the past 3 years, and large changes are announced at least 1 month ahead.

ONS sets no target for the change. Markets read it by direction and size against the previous 3 months and the same 3 months a year earlier. Small moves can reflect sampling noise, so readers weigh longer runs and the wider set of labour indicators.

Employment moves with its four components, led by employees and the self-employed, plus the flows between work, joblessness and inactivity.

• Employees: people working for an employer full time or part time, whether permanent or temporary, and the largest group.
• Self-employed: people working for themselves in their main job, full time or part time, and the second-largest group.
• Unpaid family workers: people helping a family business for a share of profits without a formal wage, under 1% of all in work.
• Government-supported trainees: trainees counted as employed only during work, work experience or related training, under 1% of all in work.

One published example put employment at 32929 thousand, down 66 thousand on the quarter and up 137 thousand on the year. ONS said the quarterly fall came from full-time employees and self-employed workers. In the same window unemployment rose 109 thousand to 1439 thousand, a 4.2% rate, while inactivity fell 38 thousand and weekly hours fell 5.6 million. Employment down with unemployment up and inactivity down pointed to loosening, with large net flows from inactivity into unemployment and slower entry into jobs.

1. Interview: interviewers speak to households through the quarter, and each person answers for a 7-day reference week.
2. Classify: a person aged 16 and over counts as employed after 1 or more hours of paid work in that week. A temporary absence from a job also counts, under International Labour Organization (ILO) rules.
3. Weight: each answer carries a calibration weight so age and sex groups match population totals. There is no weight for unknown activity, and missed contacts roll forward for one wave only.
4. Sum: weighted employed people are added across the 3-month window to give the raw level.
5. Adjust: the level is seasonally adjusted to remove seasonal and calendar effects, with an annual review that usually revises the past 3 years.
6. Difference: the quarterly change subtracts the previous non-overlapping 3-month level, and the annual change subtracts the same 3 months a year earlier. For illustration, 32929 thousand less 32995 thousand equals negative 66 thousand.