By Patrick Barnham
The Office for National Statistics has released regional, local authority and parliamentary constituency breakdowns of changes in UK employment, unemployment, economic inactivity and other related statistics.
Main points
- For the three months ending March 2023, the highest employment rate estimates in the UK were in both the South East and South West (78.8%) and the lowest was in Wales (71.5%).
- The largest increase in the employment rate compared with the same period last year was in the North East, up by 2.7 percentage points, with Wales seeing the largest decrease of 2.6 percentage points.
- For the three months ending March 2023, the highest unemployment rate estimate in the UK was in the West Midlands (5.1%) and the lowest were in both the South West (2.5%) and Northern Ireland (2.5%).
- Wales had the largest increase in the unemployment rate compared with the same period last year, increasing by 1.6 percentage points; the North West saw the largest decrease of 1.0 percentage point, contributing to the region seeing a record low unemployment rate of 3.3%.
- For the three months ending March 2023, the highest economic inactivity rate estimate in the UK was in Northern Ireland (26.1%) and the lowest was in the East of England (17.9%), which was a joint record low economic inactivity rate for the region.
- The West Midlands saw the largest increase in the economic inactivity rate compared with the same period last year, up 1.6 percentage points, with the North East seeing the largest decrease of 2.3 percentage points.
- Following a period of growth, we have seen falls in the number of payrolled employees in all regions when comparing April 2023 with March 2023.
Full report
