Number claiming unemployment benefits doubles since start of pandemic

By Q Radio News

New labour market statistics show 62,000 people in Northern Ireland claimed unemployment related benefits last month.

That is more than double the figure in March before the Coronavirus lockdown.

The figure from September remains unchanged from August's revised figure and is the fifth month that the claimant count was above 60,000; levels previously seen in 2012 and 2013.

There has also been 1,700 redundancies proposed here, since the start of September.

8,860 collective redundancies were proposed in the twelve months to the end of September, almost double the number recorded in the previous twelve months.

Record high numbers were recorded in June and July, and this is now translating into confirmed redundancies, with almost 2,000 redundancy notifications received in the last three months..

During September, 1,150 redundancies were proposed, an increase on the previous month’s total of 700, and 460 redundancies were confirmed, a decrease from the total of 820 confirmed in July. A further 570 were proposed in the current month to 12th October.

The figures also show that payrolled employees decreased and employee earnings increased over the month

The latest NI seasonally adjusted unemployment rate (the proportion of economically active people aged 16+ who were unemployed) for the period June-August 2020 was estimated from the Labour Force Survey at 3.7%.

The unemployment rate increased over the quarter by 1.2 percentage points (pps) and by 0.8pps over the year. The quarterly change was statistically significant, i.e. the recorded change exceeded the variability expected from a sample survey of this size and was likely to reflect real change.

The proportion of people aged 16 to 64 in work (the employment rate) decreased over the quarter by 0.3pps and over the year by 0.8pps to 70.6%. Although recent changes were not statistically significant, the employment rate was significantly above rates in 2017.

The economic inactivity rate (the proportion of people aged 16 to 64 who were not working and not seeking or available to work) decreased over the quarter by 0.7pps and increased over the year by 0.2pps to 26.6%.

Although recent changes were not statistically significant, the economic inactivity rate was significantly below rates in 2017.

Put into the context of the UK, NI has the lowest employment and unemployment rates and the highest economic inactivity rate of all the UK regions.