Public sector employment, UK: June 2021

• Total public sector employment was unchanged in June 2021 compared with March 2021, though has increased from a year ago, largely because of the ongoing response of the National Health Service (NHS) and the Civil Service to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

• There were an estimated 5.68 million employees in the public sector for June 2021, an increase of 131,000 (2.4%) compared with June 2020.

• Employment in central government was an estimated 3.47 million for June 2021, a fall of 2,000 (0.1%) compared with March 2021, but a rise of 132,000 (3.9%) compared with June 2020; the main contributors to this increase were the NHS, the Civil Service and local authority schools becoming academies.

• The NHS employed an estimated 1.85 million people in June 2021, an increase of 5,000 (0.3%) compared with March 2021 and an increase of 63,000 (3.5%) compared with June 2020; the response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has driven the increase on the previous year.

• Employment in the Home Civil Service decreased in June 2021 compared with March 2021 because of the departure of around 19,000 temporary staff who had been employed to undertake the 2021 Census in England and Wales; this decrease was partly offset by around 7,000 employees in Community Rehabilitation Companies transferring to HM Prison and Probation Service from the private sector.

• There were 498,000 employees in the Home Civil Service for June 2021, a decrease of 7,000 (1.4%) compared with March 2021, but 39,000 (8.5%) more than for June 2020; the increase on the previous year was partly driven by the response to the coronavirus pandemic.

• Private sector employment was an estimated 26.68 million for June 2021, an increase of 183,000 (0.7%) on March 2021 but a decrease of 333,000 (1.2%) on June 2020.

• Employment in local government was an estimated 2.01 million and little changed on the previous quarter and previous year; this was up 3,000 (0.1%) compared with March 2021 and up 5,000 (0.2%) compared with June 2020.

Coronavirus

View more information on how labour market data sources are affected by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, published on 6 May 2020.

View a comparison of our labour market data sources and the main differences, published on 11 December 2020.

Impact on production of public sector employment estimates

The collection of the data contained in this release was unaffected by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Comments provided by survey respondents suggested the estimates were partly affected by coronavirus planning and response.

Sources

The main source of public sector employment (PSE) is the Quarterly Public Sector Employment Survey, which is supplemented by data from external sources. Further information can be found in the PSE Quality and Methodology Information (QMI).

Full-time equivalents

While this bulletin focuses on headcount estimates of PSE, full-time equivalent estimates (based on the number of hours worked divided by the standard full-time hours) are available in the accompanying PSE datasets.

Seasonal adjustment

All PSE data time series in this release, with the exception of the regional series, are seasonally adjusted to aid interpretation. Relationships that hold in the unadjusted series do not necessarily hold for the seasonally adjusted series. For example, total PSE equals the total of all public sector industry estimates before seasonal adjustment, but this is not necessarily true after seasonal adjustment.

Reclassifications between the public and private sectors

Comparisons of public and private sector employment over time are complicated by several major reclassifications, where bodies employing large numbers of people have moved between the public and private sectors. We produce estimates of public and private sector employment excluding the effects of major reclassifications to help you understand underlying trends in employment. We publish these alongside estimates of total public and private sector employment in Tables 5, 6a and 7a of the PSE datasets.

Quality

More quality and methodology information on strengths, limitations, appropriate uses, and how the data were created is available in the Public sector employment QMI.