Using standard International Labour Organisation (ILO) criteria, an estimated 2,794,500 persons were in employment in Q1 2026, an increase of 400 while the percentage change was relatively unchanged from 2,794,100 in Q1 2025.
The increase of 400 (0.0%) in employment is composed of increase of 17,100 (+1.2%) for males and decrease of 16,800 (-1.3%) for females in the year to Q1 2026.
The employment rate for those aged 15-64 was 73.3% in Q1 2026 compared to 74.7% in Q1 2025 and 73.8% in Q1 2024. In Q1 2026, the employment rate for males aged 15-64 years was 77.3%, compared to 69.3% for females. See PxStat table QLF18.
See Monthly Estimates of Payroll Employees using Administrative Data Sources outputs for employment estimates based on administrative data for employees.
The economic sectors that saw the largest year-on-year increases in employment in Q1 2026 were:
Breaking these increases down to NACE division (2-digit level), the year-on-year increase seen in Construction (F) was primarily driven by increases in division 43 Specialised construction activities (+12,700) and division 42 Civil Engineering (+5,400). See PxStat table QES26
The largest decrease in employment by economic sector in Q1 2026 was observed in:
The fall in employment in Information & Communication was driven by a decrease in division 62 Computer Programming & Consultancy (-16,200).
Over 64.3% of those in employment in Q1 2026 stated that they never work at home (1,796,240).
Of the 990,070 people who reported that they work from home at least some of the time in Q1 2026, 525,200 said that they usually (more than half the time) work from home, down from a peak of 846,700 in Q1 2021.
There were 464,900 people who sometimes (at least one hour in the reference period) worked from home in Q1 2026, down from 480,400 in Q1 2025. See PxStat table QES20.
The estimated total number of hours worked per week in Q1 2026 stood at 86.3 million hours, down by 0.2 million hours or 0.2% on Q1 2025, and up 0.9 million hours (+1%) on Q1 2024. See Figure 2.3.
On a seasonally adjusted basis, the numbers in employment in Q1 2026 stood at 2,812,000 after a drop of 15,700 (-0.6%) from the previous quarter. This follows on from a seasonally adjusted quarter-on-quarter increase in employment of 8,600 (0.3%) in Q4 2025.
The seasonally adjusted number of males in employment was down by 4,200 (-0.3%) over the quarter to 1,498,900 in Q1 2026, while the corresponding number for females was down 3,600 (-0.3%) to 1,323,200 over the same period. See PxStat table QLF55.
See Monthly Estimates of Payroll Employees using Administrative Data Sources outputs for seasonally adjusted employment estimates based on administrative data for employees.
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