Jobs: Employment drop-off in NI after slight recovery

A slight recovery in Northern Ireland's job market stalled in March, official figures suggest.

HMRC payroll data is the most timely and best single overall indicator of the labour market.

It shows an estimated 744,100 payrolled employees in March, down by 200 - a marginal decrease of less than 0.1% on February.

Payrolls had risen by about 5,000 employees between November and February.

During the most intense phase of the pandemic in 2020 payroll numbers fell by almost 16,000 in a single month between March and April.

The introduction of the furlough scheme then helped to stabilise the job market.

The Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (Nisra) says an average of 115,000 people were on furlough every day in January and February.

That is well below levels of approximately 139,000 recorded at the start of July 2020, the first month for which daily counts are available.

Data from the recruitment website NI Jobs suggests employers are planning to hire more people as the lockdown comes to an end.

Its job listings in the first quarter of 2021 are up 40% on the final quarter of 2020.

Ulster Bank economist Richard Ramsey said there were some "encouraging signs".

"For example, there were no proposed redundancies in January and February," he said.

"Given the successful rollout of the vaccine, business optimism has returned to levels not seen since before the pandemic.

"As a result, firms are gearing up for the recovery."

But he warned that some jobs were still likely to be lost as the furlough scheme was phased out.

"Unprecedented employment support has kept unemployment surprisingly low.

"When the support measures are eventually lifted, unemployment will surge, but nowhere near the levels that were anticipated a year ago."

The supermarket chain Lidl says it is planning to create 55 jobs in the north-west.

It is replacing existing stores in Strabane and Londonderry and will build a second Derry branch at Crescent Link.