Measuring unemployment
There are two unemployment indicators in Jersey:
Unemployment rate
The number of registered unemployed plus people not registered but still seeking work.
Registered unemployment
The number of people registered as Actively Seeking Work (ASW) with Employment, Social Security and Housing (ESSH). Since 2025 registered unemployment statistics have been produced by ESSH.
Unemployment rate
At the time of the last census (March 2021) the ILO unemployment rate was 3.5%, corresponding to 2,058 people being unemployed at that time.
The internationally comparable rate is defined by the International Labour Organisation (ILO). The ILO unemployment rate measures the proportion of unemployed people in the entire work force. It includes people registered as unemployed and those not registered but still seeking work, and can only be determined through a large survey or census.
At the same time period, there were 1,320 people registered with the ESSH as ASW. Of those individuals, 910 were unemployed and 400 were engaged in some form of paid employment. This indicates that slightly over half (55%) of unemployed people recorded by the census were not registered as ASW.
Registered unemployment
The Employment, Social Security and Housing department (ESSH) compiles information on people registered as ASW in Jersey. This is available on the Open Data website.
Data sources and methods
The ILO unemployment rate is measured by the Jersey census and is updated between census years through household surveys. It is a measure of all those unemployed and seeking work. For more information on the methodology of the Census and household surveys, see the related links.
Find data and past reports
Find reports on our release calendar.
You can find unemployment data on the open data website.