Northern Ireland unemployment hits 'record low'

Northern Ireland's unemployment rate has hit a joint record low.

The rate dipped to just 2.3% in the three months between July and September 2019.

The employment rate, the percentage of working age adults in employment, also hit a record high of 72.6% during the same period.

However, this is still the second lowest employment rate of any UK region and well below the rate for the UK as a whole which is 76.3%.

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• Northern Ireland unemployment rate hits record low

NISRA, the official statistics agency, said the continued improvements in the Northern Ireland labour market were consistent with the UK experience, where employment is the highest on record, unemployment is joint lowest on record and inactivity is the lowest on record.

Northern Ireland continues to have a significantly higher rate of economic inactivity compared to the UK average.

Economic inactivity is a measurement of those people who are not in work and not looking for work - that includes students, retired people and sick or disabled people.

The rate in Northern Ireland is 25.7% which is one of the lowest rates on record - but still remains well above the rate in the rest of the UK of 20.6%.