Date Published: Tue, 23 Aug 2016

Number of Persons in Employment  

• There was an annual increase in employment of 2.9% or 56,200 in the year to the second quarter of 2016, bringing total employment to 2,014,900.  

• On a seasonally adjusted basis, employment increased by 20,000 (+1.0%) over the previous quarter. This follows on from a seasonally adjusted increase in employment of 16,100 (+0.8%) in Q1 2016.

Number of Persons Unemployed 

• The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was unchanged over the quarter at 8.4%. 

• Unemployment decreased by 23,400 (-11.1%) in the year to Q2 2016 bringing the total number of persons unemployed to 187,800. 

• The long-term unemployment rate decreased from 5.5% to 4.4% over the year to Q2 2016. Long-term unemployment accounted for 51.1% of total unemployment in Q2 2016 compared with 56.1% a year earlier and 57.6% in the second quarter of 2014.

Labour Force  

• The total number of persons in the labour force in the second quarter of 2016 was 2,202,700 representing an increase of 32,800 (+1.5%) over the year. The number of persons not in the labour force in Q2 2016 was 1,434,900, a decrease of 2,200 (-0.2%) over the year.

                                                                                                               – ENDS –