'˜Mixed bag' as labour data reveals gains and losses

The data comes from the latest Labour Force Survey compiled by the NI statistics agency NISRA.

The survey said the trend of increasing jobs in the local NI economy was consistent with the rest of the UK, which is also reporting increases over the quarter and year to a record high (30.5 million).

However, the levels here remain ‘significantly’ lower than in GB. Similarly the survey indicated once again that levels of economic inactivity remain much higher in comparison.

FSB NI Policy Chair, Tina McKenzie said the political paralysis was not helping the situation.

“The labour market figures released today are a mixed bag for the Northern Ireland economy with economic inactivity, those not in work nor seeking employment, continuing to rise, meaning that we have a lower percentage of people in work here than in any other region in the UK.

“The lack of a functioning Executive has meant that the targeted action required to address this persistent problem has not been taken.”

She said the issue must be a top priority for an incoming Executive to create a pathway for those economically inactive back to the labour market.

“More encouraging was the news that private sector jobs have increased to their highest level on record, showing the local private sector finally recovering from the 2008 economic crash,” she added.

“The figures also show a rebalancing of the economy with private sector jobs replacing those lost in the public sector.

“Employing more people than all larger businesses and the entire public sector combined, SMEs have a crucial role to play in driving the private sector forward and it is vital that they are supported.”

Ulster Bank chief economist for Northern Ireland, Richard Ramsey said the rise in the number of jobs failed to explain a disappointing story.

“Northern Ireland’s private sector has been growing continuously for 17 quarters, since June 2014,” he said.

“Over that period private industry has generated a net gain of 77,000 jobs (+16%). That’s an average of 4,500 jobs per quarter over the last four-and-a-bit years.

“Impressive stuff until you consider what has been happening to output. As of Q2 2018, private sector output was still over 3% below where it was a decade ago. This is despite the fact that there are an additional 44,000 jobs (+9%) contributing to this output.

“Clearly this highlights that Northern Ireland’s job machine is producing quantity rather than quality.”