The Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimates for February 2024 indicate that the number of payrolled employees rose by 1.2% compared with February 2023, a rise of 368,000 employees. This annual increase was largest in the health and social work sector, a rise of 210,000 employees.
Payrolled employment increased by 20,000 employees (0.1%) in February 2024 when compared with January 2024.
UK payrolled employee growth for January 2024, compared with December 2023, has been revised, from an increase of 48,000 reported in the last bulletin, to an increase of 15,000; this is 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.
Pay increases by 5.5%
Early estimates for February 2024 indicate that median monthly pay increased by 5.5% compared with February 2023.
Annual growth in median pay in February 2024 was highest in the other service activities sector, with an increase of 7.4%, and lowest in the finance and insurance sector, with a decrease of 0.3%.
Real Earnings increase by 1.4%
Average Weekly Earnings annual growth rates – real pay (using CPIH)
In recent periods, annual growth in both real total (including bonuses) and regular (excluding bonuses) earnings has risen on the year
Gender earnings gap 35.9% but falling
In 2022, women’s per person lifetime earnings were 35.9% less than men’s, which was the smallest difference since 2004.
The gap between women’s and men’s per person lifetime earnings decreased by 3.7 percentage points between 2004 and 2022.
The gender lifetime earnings gap is smaller for younger age groups
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PAYadvice.UK 23/2/2024