Northern Ireland Economy — Live Health Monitor

Keeping track of how Northern Ireland’s economy is performing can be difficult, with statistics spread across multiple government sources and published at different times throughout the year.

This live dashboard brings all the key indicators together in one place — updated automatically whenever new official figures are released by NISRA (Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency) and the Department for the Economy.

The monitor tracks 12 indicators across five areas:

• Economic Output — how fast the NI economy is growing compared to the UK
• Labour Market — employment, unemployment, wages and claimant count
• Construction — sector growth and output (the strongest performing sector in 2024)
• Trade — total business sales and exports
• Prices — NI inflation compared to the UK average

Each indicator is colour coded — green means on track, amber means watch, and red flags a concern. Trend sparklines show whether things are improving or getting worse over time.

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Latest Update — May 2026

The May 2026 labour market figures from NISRA show an improving picture for Northern Ireland:

• Employment rate has risen to 72.1%, up 0.6 percentage points on the previous year
• Unemployment has eased to 2.1%, down from a recent high of 2.4%
• The claimant count has fallen to 35,600 (3.5% of the workforce)
• Median monthly pay has reached £2,467, an increase of 3.2% over the year
• Economic inactivity has dropped to 26.3%, down 1.0 percentage point year-on-year

The overall health score has moved from 67 to 72 out of 100, reflecting this improved labour market performance.

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Open the full dashboard below to explore all the latest figures.