Earnings And Employment From Pay As You Earn Real Time Information, Uk: February 2022
16th February 2022
Experimental monthly estimates of payrolled employees and their pay from HM Revenue and Customs' (HMRC's) Pay As You Earn (PAYE) Real Time Information (RTI) data. This is a joint release between HMRC and the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
1.Main points
Early estimates for January 2022 indicate that the number of payrolled employees rose by 4.8% compared with January 2021, a rise of 1,350,000 employees; the number of payrolled employees was up by 1.5% since February 2020, a rise of 436,000.
There were 108,000 more people in payrolled employment in January 2022 when compared with December 2021.
UK payrolled employee growth for December 2021 compared with November 2021 has been revised from an increase of 184,000 reported in the last bulletin to an increase of 131,000; this revision is a result of incorporating additional real time information (RTI) submissions into the statistics, reducing the need for imputation - which takes place every publication; as early estimates have a higher level of imputation, revisions of this scale are within expectation.
Early estimates for January 2022 indicate that median monthly pay increased by 6.3% compared with January 2021, and increased by 10.3% when compared with February 2020.
All age groups saw an increase in payrolled employees between January 2021 and January 2022; there was an increase of 552,000 payrolled employees aged under 25 years.
For Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) 3 regions, annual growth in payrolled employees in January 2022 was the highest in Tower Hamlets, with a rise of 11.9%, and was lowest in Warrington, with a rise of 2.2%.
The increase in payrolled employees between January 2021 and January 2022 was largest in the accommodation and food service activities sector (a rise of 318,000 employees) and smallest in the finance and insurance sector (no change).
This month, NUTS1 regions are further broken down by sectors in the supporting datasets for this bulletin; some sectors show similar growth rates to the region level, while others, such as accommodation and food service activities and transportation and storage, show moderate regional variation.
Annual growth in median pay for employees in January 2022 was highest in the other service activities sector (an increase of 11.0%), and lowest in the education sector (an increase of 2.7%).
Annual growth rates for January 2022 are compared with January 2021, and so the reduction in employees and median pay seen following the beginning of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is no longer contributing to the annual growth rate. Annual growth rates are now compared with this lower baseline.
2.Payrolled employees
Early estimates for January 2022 indicate that there were 29.5 million payrolled employees (Figure 1), a rise of 4.8% compared with the same period of the previous year. This was also a rise of 1,350,000 people over the 12-month period. Compared with the previous month, the number of payrolled employees increased by 0.4% in January 2022, which is equivalent to 108,000 people.
1.Main points
Early estimates for January 2022 indicate that the number of payrolled employees rose by 4.8% compared with January 2021, a rise of 1,350,000 employees; the number of payrolled employees was up by 1.5% since February 2020, a rise of 436,000.
There were 108,000 more people in payrolled employment in January 2022 when compared with December 2021.
UK payrolled employee growth for December 2021 compared with November 2021 has been revised from an increase of 184,000 reported in the last bulletin to an increase of 131,000; this revision is a result of incorporating additional real time information (RTI) submissions into the statistics, reducing the need for imputation - which takes place every publication; as early estimates have a higher level of imputation, revisions of this scale are within expectation.
Early estimates for January 2022 indicate that median monthly pay increased by 6.3% compared with January 2021, and increased by 10.3% when compared with February 2020.
All age groups saw an increase in payrolled employees between January 2021 and January 2022; there was an increase of 552,000 payrolled employees aged under 25 years.
For Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) 3 regions, annual growth in payrolled employees in January 2022 was the highest in Tower Hamlets, with a rise of 11.9%, and was lowest in Warrington, with a rise of 2.2%.
The increase in payrolled employees between January 2021 and January 2022 was largest in the accommodation and food service activities sector (a rise of 318,000 employees) and smallest in the finance and insurance sector (no change).
This month, NUTS1 regions are further broken down by sectors in the supporting datasets for this bulletin; some sectors show similar growth rates to the region level, while others, such as accommodation and food service activities and transportation and storage, show moderate regional variation.
Annual growth in median pay for employees in January 2022 was highest in the other service activities sector (an increase of 11.0%), and lowest in the education sector (an increase of 2.7%).
Annual growth rates for January 2022 are compared with January 2021, and so the reduction in employees and median pay seen following the beginning of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is no longer contributing to the annual growth rate. Annual growth rates are now compared with this lower baseline.
About the data in this release
Early estimates for January 2022 are provided to give an indication of the likely level of employees as well as median pay in the latest period. These early estimates are on average based on around 85% of information being available. They are considered of lower quality and may be subject to revision in next month's release when between 98% to 99% of data will be available. This work was introduced in April 2020 in response to coronavirus (COVID-19) and methods will continue to be developed. A revisions triangle is available for employees and median pay at the UK level.
This release covers people paid through the Pay As You Earn (PAYE) system where their pay is reported through the Real Time Information (RTI) system. As employees who are furloughed as part of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) should still have their payments reported through this system, they should feature in these data and contribute toward the employment and pay statistics for the relevant periods. Similarly, following the end of the furlough scheme, employees who have been given notice that their employment will end will continue to be included in the RTI data while they work out their notice period. This effect could extend over a few months, given statutory notice periods. This is consistent with how any employee being made redundant would appear in the RTI data.
Statistics in this release are based on people who are employed in at least one job paid through PAYE, and monthly estimates reflect the average of such people for each day of the calendar month. This follows the introduction of a new methodology in December 2019, designed to better align with international guidelines for labour market statistics. This differs from the methodology used before December 2019, which produced statistics based on the total number of people paid in a particular time period.
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2.Payrolled employees
Early estimates for January 2022 indicate that there were 29.5 million payrolled employees (Figure 1), a rise of 4.8% compared with the same period of the previous year. This was also a rise of 1,350,000 people over the 12-month period. Compared with the previous month, the number of payrolled employees increased by 0.4% in January 2022, which is equivalent to 108,000 people.
When comparing the number of payrolled employees in December 2021 with the previous month, the number increased by 0.4%. This is revised down from the early estimate of a 0.6% increase, reported in the bulletin published on 18 January 2022.
Figure 1: The number of employees declined between February and November 2020, but is now above the pre-coronavirus level
Payrolled employees, seasonally adjusted, UK, July 2014 to January 2022
Payrolled employeesFlash estimateJan 2022Jan 2021Jan 2020Jan 2019Jan 2018Jan 2017Jan 2016Jan 201526,500,00027,000,00027,500,00028,000,00028,500,00029,000,00029,500,00030,000,000Payrolled employees
Mar 2021
● Payrolled employees: 28,211,116
Source: HM Revenue and Customs - Pay As You Earn Real Time Information
Notes:
The latest period, highlighted in orange, is based on early data and therefore is more likely to be subject to slightly more significant revisions.
The December 2021 figure is not a flash estimate of payrolled employees, this is included purely for graphing purposes.
Download this chartFigure 1: The number of employees declined between February and November 2020, but is now above the pre-coronavirus level
Image .csv .xls
Annual growth in the number of employees remained broadly within a range of 1.0% to 1.5% from mid-2016 until 2019. Growth rates before mid-2016 were higher than 1.5% (Figure 2).
Starting around early 2019, employee growth began a slight downward trend. However, employee growth slowed more substantially past March 2020, (becoming negative in April 2020) coinciding with the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
Since the start of 2021, growth rates have started to recover on the lower rates seen since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. However, part of this recovery is because of the reduction in employees between March and May 2020 no longer contributing to the annual growth rate.
3.Median monthly pay
Early estimates for January 2022 indicate that median monthly pay was £2,050, an increase of 6.3% compared with the same period of the previous year.
Following a general trend of increasing pay growth between mid-2015 and mid-2018, pay growth tended to fluctuate around 3.6%, until 2020 when pay growth became negative. This coincided with the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and related economic and policy responses. From June 2020, median pay growth has been positive, and is now above pre-coronavirus (February 2020) levels.
4.Pay distribution
In the three months to December 2021, the 10th percentile of the monthly pay distribution was £672, the 90th percentile was £4,797 and the 99th percentile was £13,770 (Figure 5). This means that:
10% of payrolled employees earned equal to or less than £672 per month
90% of payrolled employees earned equal to or less than £4,797 per month
99% of payrolled employees earned equal to or less than £13,770 per month
Note
Read the full report at
https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/bulletins/earningsandemploymentfrompayasyouearnrealtimeinformationuk/february2022
