Economy 27 February 2026, 9:46am

Between November 2025 and January 2026, the average number of people in employment aged 15–74 was 4,628,000, which was 68,000 fewer than in the same period the previous year. This means that the slow decline in employment continued, with 4.44 million people working in the primary labour market (excluding public sector workers and commuters to other countries),

which was 81,000 fewer than a year ago and reached a nearly five-year low.

The average number of unemployed people was 224,000, which was 11,000 higher than a year ago (within the sampling error margin). The unemployment rate was 4.6%, which was 0.3 percentage points higher than in the same period the previous year.

Overall, neither unemployment nor the employment rate has increased significantly in recent times. Therefore, it is suspected that the decline in employment is not only due to the weak economic situation (lasting stagnation for more than three years), but also due to the decline in the working-age population. In other words, demographic factors are increasingly impacting the labour market.

Cover image (for illustration purposes only): Portfolio