Date Published: Wed, 25 Feb 2015

Number of Persons in Employment

• There was an annual increase in employment of 1.5% or 29,100 in the year to the fourth quarter of 2014, bringing total employment to 1,938,900.
• On a seasonally adjusted basis, employment increased by 9,700 (+0.5%) over the previous quarter. This follows on from a seasonally adjusted increase in employment of 11,000 (+0.6%) in Q3 2014.

Number of Persons Unemployed

• The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate decreased from 11.1% to 10.4% over the quarter.
• Unemployment decreased by 39,600 (-15.6%) in the year to Q4 2014 bringing the total number of persons unemployed to 213,600.
• The long-term unemployment rate decreased from 7.2% to 5.7% over the year to Q4 2014. Longterm unemployment accounted for 57.8% of total unemployment in Q4 2014 compared with 61.4% a year earlier and 59.9% in the fourth quarter of 2012.

Labour Force  

• The total number of persons in the labour force in the fourth quarter of 2014 was 2,152,500, representing a decrease of 10,500 (-0.5%) over the year. The number of persons not in the labour force in Q4 2014 was 1,449,300, an increase of 15,000 (+1.0%) over the year.

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