Asked by: Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the correlation between employment levels and economic activity over the past year.
Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
Employment measures the number of people in paid work or who had a job that they were temporarily away from. GDP is a measure of economic activity and measures the size and growth of the economy over a given period.
Real GDP (GDP adjusted for inflation) has grown by 1.3% across the past year (Q3 2024 - Q3 2025). In Q3 2025 the 16+ employment level rose from 33.8 million in Q3 2024 to 34.2 million in Q3 2025, based on data from the Labour Force Survey.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) continue to advise caution when interpreting changes in the Labour Force Survey over the past two years due to the effects of methodological changes.