Key Points

A summary of the key points in the 2023/24 Financial Year:

  • There were 49,337 employment vacancies notified to the Department for Communities.

  • Employment vacancies notified to the Department peaked in the 2021/22 financial year (91,087) following the impact of the pandemic. The 2023/24 total (49,337) represents a 22% decline from the previous year (63,300).

  • The Jobs and Benefits Offices with the largest numbers of notified vacancies were Shaftesbury Square with 4,571 (9% of total) followed by Belfast North with 4,546 (9%), Holywood Road with 4,502 (9%) and Portadown with 2,841 (6%).

  • There were 32,245 notified vacancies for full-time positions (65%), 13,307 notified vacancies for part-time positions (27%) and 3,785 notified vacancies for casual positions (8%).

  • Belfast was the Local Government District with the highest number of vacancies notified to the Department (15,933 vacancies) which equates to 45.8 vacancies per 1,000 population. The Local Government District with the lowest number of vacancies was Ards and North Down with 2,259 which was 13.8 vacancies per head of population.

  • The most frequently notified occupation types for vacancies were ‘Caring, Leisure and Other Service Occupations’ with 16,096 (33%) and ‘Elementary Occupations’ with 7,969 (16%).

  • The industry type with the largest number of notified vacancies was ‘Human Health and Social Work’ accounting for 13,024 vacancies (26%), followed by ‘Administrative and Support Service’ 12,051 (24%) and ‘Other Services’ with 9,904 (20%).

  • The greatest proportion of vacancies occurred in the more deprived areas of Northern Ireland, 32% (15,684) of vacancies were listed in the most deprived 20% of areas.

Introduction

This publication presents statistics on employment vacancies notified to the Department for Communities (DfC). The information is taken from the department’s vacancy service JobApplyNI which went live on 31 March 2022, replacing the previous vacancy service and websites. JobApplyNI is a free website developed by DfC which offers a service for organisations advertising vacancies and for jobseekers searching and applying for jobs.

The statistics presented here do not relate to the total unsatisfied demand for staff by employers, but to only those vacant positions that have been notified by employers to DfC.

This bulletin presents the number of notified vacancies to DfC during the 2023/24 financial year by Jobs and Benefits Offices (JBOs), Local Government District (LGD), Standard Occupational Classification 2020 (SOC 2020), Standard Industrial Classification 2007 (SIC 2007), type of vacancy and by Northern Ireland Multiple Deprivation Measure 2017 (NIMDM 2017).

Annual statistics are also presented to highlight the trends in notified vacancies covering the period 2014/15 to 2021/22 financial years from the previous IT system as well as the 2022/23 and 2023/24 totals from the new system.

Supplementary tables (Open Document Spreadsheet) accompanying this publication are available on the Department for Communities (DfC) website.

Notes

Background

The Department’s new vacancy taking system, JobApplyNI went live on 31 March 2022 with the aims of providing employers, jobseekers and all users with an efficient, modern system to advertise, search and apply for jobs.

The previous legacy vacancy management system used the Client Management System (CMS) and two associated websites (Employers Online and Jobseekers Online). The time series from the previous system ran from 2014/15 due to improvements which were made to the methodology for recording and validating data on vacancies in 2013.

The centralisation of vacancy taking services for all local offices took place in January 2019, impacting all data from April 2019 onwards. This process established a consistent approach to recording all employer registrations and vacancies, including the accurate record of the number of available positions within each vacancy registration.

This publication is the second DfC annual Statistical Bulletin containing vacancy data from the new JobApplyNI system. The introduction of JobApplyNI has led to further efficiencies in notifying vacancy statistics. JobApplyNI allows for more enhanced systematic validations (e.g. identification of rejected vacancies) and allows for presentation of updated SOC (2020) codes and as such caution should be exercised when comparing with data from the period 2014/15 to 2021/22.

Coverage

This bulletin presents vacancies notified to DfC. The statistics presented do not relate to total unsatisfied demand for staff by employers, only those vacant positions notified by employers to the Department. Detailed total stock analysis at Northern Ireland (NI) level is not currently available from other sources.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) produces monthly analysis of vacancy statistics but NI companies are not approached because of the risk of overlap with other surveys conducted by NI Departments. Estimates for the UK are derived by weighing up the data for Great Britain using employment estimates (NI accounts for around 3% of UK employment). The 2021/22 financial year saw record number of UK vacancies although there have been twenty one successive monthly declines in vacancy numbers as reported in April 2024.

A small proportion of vacancies notified to the Department are based in other areas of the UK or in the Republic of Ireland (ROI) and are included in the figures in this publication.

This bulletin presents the number of notified vacancies during the last financial year (1 April 2023 - 31 March 2024) by Northern Ireland JBOs, Local Government District 2014 (LGD 2014), Standard Occupational Classification 2020 (SOC 2020), Standard Industrial Classification 2007 (SIC 2007), type of vacancy and by Northern Ireland Multiple Deprivation Measure (NIMDM 2017) as well as presenting trend analysis over the ten-year period for which comparative data is available.

Further information on the methodology and definitions used in the production of this bulletin are provided in the relevant sections below.

Who will be interested in this bulletin?

Statistics presented within this bulletin and those derived from it are currently used by a wide variety of stakeholders. For example, by DfC policy officials to monitor performance and to inform future policy decisions; by other government departments such as the Department for the Economy (DfE) and by researchers and academics to help understand the underlying trends in the labour market.

Limitations of data

DfC offers a free of charge vacancy placement service to employers. The vacancy management statistics reported in this bulletin relate to the service that was offered through the JobApplyNI digital platform interface which allows employers and jobseekers to interact.

The relevant data are extracted from JobApplyNI each month to form a vacancies database which is maintained by the Department’s Analytics Division. The data presented in this Statistical Bulletin are derived from the vacancies database.

Over time, as more information becomes available, estimates can be revised to improve quality and accuracy, this will provide a better picture of that being measured. Revisions are expected to be minimal and may be due to database changes applied or to amendments to vacancies which are live on the recent count date. These revisions are performed in accordance with T3.9 of the UK Statistics Authority Code of Practice for Statistics.

JobApplyNI

DfC offers services that provide support to employers and jobseekers. JobApplyNI is the new system put in place for vacancy management. Previously the vacancy taking service was offered primarily through the local Jobs & Benefits Offices (JBOs), with a validation team within Employment Services Branch (ESB). Following Universal Credit rollout in Northern Ireland, centralisation of the vacancy taking service commenced in January 2019 and this led to responsibility shifting from all JBOs to ESB (impacting all data from April 2019 onwards). Since then ESB has been the single, centralised, point of contact in DfC for uploading and managing all vacancies for NI employers using the service.

DfC now facilitates its support for employers and jobseekers through the JobApplyNI website (www.jobapplyni.com) in conjunction with DfC’s network of JBOs. The Client Management System (CMS) database previously supported the Department’s job vacancy websites and was in place for over 20 years. A new replacement vacancy management system launched on 31 March 2022 and it amalgamated the two previous websites- JobCentre Online (JCOL) and Employers Online (EROL) into one- www.jobapplyni.com. The upgrading of the vacancy management system aims to provide employers, jobseekers and all users with an efficient, modern system to advertise, search and apply for jobs.

The previous vacancy management system had no mechanism to distinguish between rejected vacancies and raised vacancies. As such rejected vacancies were included in the total vacancy count between 2014/15 to 2021/22. JobApplyNI has such a mechanism in place so rejected vacancies (approx. 5% of 2022/23 and 2023/24 totals) can be identified and removed from total vacancies notified to DfC. Given this distinction, caution should be exercised when comparing 2022/23 and 2023/24 data against that from previous years.

JobApplyNI has a more robust suite of in-built system validations in place than the legacy vacancy management system. This includes a number of in-built software quality checks which are designed to alleviate issues with incorrect or invalid entry types.

Official Statistics

Our statistical practice is regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR).

OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics that all producers of official statistics should adhere to.

You are welcome to contact us directly with any comments about how we meet these standards. Alternatively, you can contact OSR by emailing or via the OSR website.

Methodology and Definitions

Vacancy details are recorded on the Department for Communities (DfC) JobApplyNI IT system which provides an interface for employers and jobseekers to interact.

The 2023/24 statistics presented in this bulletin are derived from monthly data extracted from JobApplyNI which the Department’s Analytics Division used to form a vacancy database.

Vacancies advertised by other means (e.g. newspapers, alternative websites) are not included in the figures presented in this bulletin. The statistics therefore do not provide comprehensive measures relating to all vacancies available to jobseekers in Northern Ireland. The number of vacancies which are notified by employers to DfC varies over time, according to the occupation and industry of the vacancies and also by geographical area.

The following notes explain the definitions underlying the data presented in this statistical bulletin. Some vacancies could not be allocated to categories or geographies shown but are included in the overall total, further details are provided in the Supplementary tables accompanying this publication.

UK Standard Occupational Classification 2020 (SOC 2020):

DfC assigns each vacancy the SOC 2020 code which best reflects the main duties of the post. Vacancies are broken down by the nine SOC 2020 Major Group levels. Examples and information can be found in the SOC 2020 Volume 1: structure and descriptions of unit groups - Office for National Statistics.

UK Standard Industrial Classification of Economic Activities 2007 (SIC 2007):

Employers are assigned the SIC 2007 code which best reflects their dominant activity by DfC. All vacancies are assigned the SIC 2007 code of the notifying employer. Vacancies are broken down by SIC 2007 section level. Information about SIC 2007 is available in the UK Standard Industrial Classification of Economic Activities 2007 (SIC 2007): Structure and Explanatory Notes manual.

Northern Ireland Multiple Deprivation Measure (NIMDM 2017)

The NIMDM 2017 is the official measure of deprivation in Northern Ireland and provides a relative measure of deprivation for geographical areas. NIMDM 2017 gives an overall measure of seven types of deprivation:

  • Income Deprivation
  • Employment Deprivation
  • Health Deprivation & Disability
  • Education, Skills & Training Deprivation
  • Access to Services
  • Living Environment
  • Crime & Disorder

Vacancy statistics are presented by Northern Ireland Multiple Deprivation Measure quintile bands: ranks 1-178 (most deprived), ranks 179-356, ranks 357-534, ranks 535-712 and ranks 713-890 (least deprived). Northern Ireland Multiple Deprivation Measure ranks are based on the Super Output Area (SOA) classification of the vacancy. SOA classifications are assigned to vacancies using the Central Postcode Directory (January 2023) based on the postcode of the employers account. When a valid employer’s account postcode is not available, the postcode of the vacancy is used. Although an employer’s account is within a particular SOA, the job may be based elsewhere in Northern Ireland, in the UK or in the Republic of Ireland.