{"id":770195,"date":"2026-02-17T10:24:27","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T10:24:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/770195\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T10:24:27","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T10:24:27","slug":"planned-redundancies-surge-in-northern-ireland-at-the-start-of-2026-the-irish-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/770195\/","title":{"rendered":"Planned redundancies surge in Northern Ireland at the start of 2026 \u2013 The Irish News"},"content":{"rendered":"

The number of redundancies proposed by employers in Northern Ireland surged in January, official government figures show.<\/p>\n

There were 710 proposed job cuts in the opening weeks of 2026, according to the latest labour market report from the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (Nisra).<\/p>\n

While it was the highest monthly number since May 2025, it represented the third biggest monthly total recorded over the past five years and 25% of the total redundancies proposed over the last 12 months (2,880).<\/p>\n

Last month saw the ABP Food Group place 338 jobs at risk of redundancy after it announced plans to cease retail packing at its facility at the Granville Industrial Estate<\/a>, near Dungannon.<\/p>\n

\"Family-run<\/a>\"Planned<\/a><\/p>\n

Financial services company FinTrU also confirmed it initiated a consultation<\/a> with \u201ca number of roles\u201d at risk of redundancy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"FinTrU'sFinTrU confirmed plans to cut jobs in January 2026. <\/p>\n

Employers in the north are only required to notify Stormont\u2019s Department for the Economy when making at least 20 people redundant.<\/p>\n

It means the actual number of redundancies proposed last month will be inevitably higher.<\/p>\n

NIsra\u2019s February data release revealed 100 redundancies were confirmed in January 2026, which was less than half the 220 confirmed in December.<\/p>\n

Despite the sharp rise in employers planning to cut jobs at the start of 2026, the number of people being paid through HMRC\u2019s (pay as you earn) system reached a new record last month.<\/p>\n

The PAYE count reached 818,662 in January, which was 0.2% up over the month and 1.2% higher over the year to January 2026, the equivalent of an additional 10,000 jobs year-on-year.<\/p>\n

Earnings also jumped again last month, with the median monthly pay rising by \u00a327 (1.1%) to \u00a32,443, representing an annual increase of 6% (\u00a3138), well above the UK\u2019s headline inflation rate of 3.4% over the year to December 2025.<\/p>\n

The February labour market report also showed an increase in the north\u2019s claimant count total, which increased 4.3% over the month to 36,600, the equivalent of 3.7% of the workforce.<\/p>\n

That was in line with the claimant count measured throughout the second half of 2025.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Nisra\u2019s latest labour market survey estimated the Norhern Ireland employment rate at 2.2% in the final quarter of 2025.<\/p>\n

That was 0.2 percentage points (pps) down on the previous quarter, but 0.6pps up over the year.<\/p>\n

The corresponding employment rate increased by 0.5pps over the quarter and decreased by 0.3pps over the year to 71.9%.<\/p>\n

The north\u2019s economic inactivity rate, i.e. the proportion of people aged 16-64 not working, not seeking or available to work, decreased by 0.3pps over the quarter and decreased by 0.2pps over the year to 26.5%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The number of redundancies proposed by employers in Northern Ireland surged in January, official government figures show. There…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":770196,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5011],"tags":[18223,21528,1144,35961,16,5664,15],"class_list":["post-770195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-northern-ireland","tag-economic","tag-labour-market","tag-northern-ireland","tag-redundancy","tag-uk","tag-unemployment","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116085487739692504","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=770195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770195\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/770196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=770195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=770195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=770195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}