From 13 February 2024, ONS have reinstated the reweighted Labour Force Survey (LFS) estimates available in the Nomis dataset "labour force survey - national and regional - headline indicators".

The new reweighted LFS estimates incorporate the latest estimates of the size and composition of the UK population, improving the representativeness of the LFS estimates. Given time constraints, ONS have only been able to reweight LFS data from July to September 2022 onwards. Therefore, this reweighting exercise creates a discontinuity between June to August 2022 and July to September 2022 where there will be a step change in LFS estimates. However, ONS have modelled the seasonally adjusted UK levels of employment, unemployment and economic inactivity by sex and age-band back to June to August 2011, to ensure that UK headline rates and levels by sex and age-band can be assessed without a discontinuity.

This means that for periods from June to August 2011 to June to August 2022, the UK headline series in the LFS headline indicators dataset will not be consistent with component regional and country series.

Important note:
Reweighting does not address the volatility seen in recent periods and may be seen to some extent going forwards, so ONS advise caution when interpreting short-term changes in headline rates and recommend using them as part of a suite of labour market indicators, alongside Workforce Jobs, Claimant Count data and PAYE RTI estimates.

LFS estimates are currently not considered National Statistics and are currently designated as official statistics in development.

For further information, please see the ONS Impact of reweighting on Labour Force Survey key indicators article.