Alongside the summary of key points below, you can view the interactive version of our London labour market update.

Previous updates and other labour market analyses are also available.

• The total number of payrolled employees rose by around 22,600 in London, or 0.5%, between December and January 2022 and is 0.4% above pre-pandemic (February 2020) levels.
• Employee growth varies by sector. Despite recent increases, payrolled employee numbers in sectors such as Hospitality (-10.1%) and Arts & recreation (-5.1%) remain lower than February 2020 levels.
• The employment rate in London was estimated at 75.9% for the three months ending December 2021, up 0.8 percentage points (pp) on the previous quarter and up 1.5pp on the same period in the previous year. London’s employment rate is now slightly higher than the UK average (75.5%).
• The unemployment rate continued to fall from its pandemic peak but is still higher than the UK average. London’s unemployment rate was estimated at 5.2%, down 0.5pp on the quarter and down 2.1pp from a year earlier. The UK average was 4.1%.
• London’s inactivity rate (the measure of those not looking and/or not available to work) was estimated at 19.8%. While this was up 0.2pp on the previous year, the inactivity rate fell 0.6pp on the previous quarter and remains lower than the UK-wide estimate of 21.2%.