Jobs: North Wales posts biggest regional fall as Flintshire employment ranking drops
Flintshire has dropped out of the top three Welsh local authorities for employment rate in new Welsh Government figures published on 22 April 2026.
In the latest Annual Population Survey figures covering the year ending 31 December 2025, the highest employment rates in Wales were in Newport at 76.9%, Monmouthshire at 76.8% and Pembrokeshire at 76.6%.
Flintshire is not named in the top three.
The exact Flintshire figure for the year ending 31 December 2025 is not stated in the Welsh Government release summary, but it is lower than 76.6%.
In the three previous quarterly releases, Flintshire ranked first, second and third.
In the release covering the year ending 31 March 2025, Flintshire had the highest employment rate in Wales at 80.3%.
In the release covering the year ending 30 June 2025, Flintshire ranked second at 77.5%.
In the release covering the year ending 30 September 2025, Flintshire ranked third at 76.0%.
Across the four releases, the direction of change for Flintshire has been consistent.
The Office for Statistics Regulation has temporarily suspended the accredited status of Annual Population Survey labour market estimates, following a fall in sample sizes and because the survey has not been reweighted to the latest population estimates.
The Welsh Government release states: “Estimates for smaller geographies or population sub-groups, however, are less reliable.”
At regional level, the employment rate in north Wales was 73.9% in the year ending 31 December 2025, down 1.9 percentage points over the year.
That is the biggest fall of the three Welsh economic regions.
South East Wales saw its employment rate rise by 0.3 percentage points to 72.6%, and Mid and South West Wales fell by 0.3 percentage points to 71.2%.
North Wales was the only Welsh region to record a rise in its economic inactivity rate over the year, up 1.0 percentage points to 22.6%.
At Wales level, the employment rate for people aged 16 to 64 was 72.5%, down 0.3 percentage points on the previous year.
The UK rate was 75.5%, up 0.2 percentage points over the year.
That widened the UK-Wales employment gap from 2.5 percentage points to 3.0 percentage points.
The release notes that the Welsh Government has set a national wellbeing milestone to “eradicate the gap between the employment rate in Wales and the UK by 2050”.
The release adds that the gap “has gradually narrowed since 2011, however this trend has changed in recent periods”.
The Welsh unemployment rate for people aged 16 and over was 4.5% in the year ending 31 December 2025, up 1.2 percentage points on the previous year.
The Welsh youth unemployment rate (16 to 24) was 15.4%, up 5.6 percentage points, though the release flags the youth series as volatile and advises that short-term changes be considered alongside longer-term trends.
Despite the drop in its headline employment rate, Flintshire retains one of the strongest labour market participation positions in Wales.
The economic inactivity rate in Flintshire was 20.6% in the year ending 31 December 2025, the second lowest in Wales behind Ceredigion at 19.5%.
Flintshire is one of only ten Welsh local authorities with a sample size large enough for a published unemployment rate.
The release does not name Flintshire among the authorities with the lowest or highest unemployment rates this quarter; Caerphilly had the lowest rate at 2.9% and Swansea the highest at 9.7%.
The Welsh Government recommends that Annual Population Survey figures are considered alongside other indicators including HMRC Real Time Information on paid employees and the claimant count.
The next Annual Population Survey release from the Welsh Government is scheduled for 22 July 2026.
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