The Number Of Payrolled Employees Increased By Over One Million Since February 2020

13th June 2023

Early estimates for May 2023 indicate that the number of payrolled employees rose by 1.6% compared with May 2022, a rise of 460,000 employees; the number of payrolled employees was up by 3.5% since February 2020, a rise of 1,016,000.

Payrolled employment increased by 23,000 employees (0.1%) in May 2023 when compared with April 2023, though this should be treated as a provisional estimate and is likely to be revised when more data are received next month.

UK payrolled employee growth for April 2023 compared with March 2023 has been revised from a decrease of 136,000 reported in the last bulletin to an increase of 7,000, because of the incorporation of additional real time information (RTI) submissions into the statistics, which takes place every publication and reduces the need for imputation.

Early estimates for May 2023 indicate that median monthly pay increased by 7.0% compared with May 2022, and increased by 20.4% when compared with February 2020.

Between May 2022 and May 2023, there was a decrease of 3,000 payrolled employees aged under 25 years; during the same period, payrolled employees aged 35 to 49 years increased by 163,000.

For Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) 3 regions, annual growth in payrolled employees in May 2023 was the highest in Luton, with a rise of 4.1%, and was lowest in Westminster, with a fall of 0.6%; at local administrative unit level, growth rates varied between negative 2.0% and positive 5.0%.

The increase in payrolled employees between May 2022 and May 2023 was largest in the health and social work sector, a rise of 183,000 employees, and smallest in the wholesale and retail sector, with a fall of 43,000.

Annual growth in median pay for employees in May 2023 was highest in the other service activities sector, with an increase of 10.1%, and lowest in the arts, entertainment and recreation sector, with an an increase of 5.4%.

Read the full report HERE