1. Main points
- The proportion of workless households decreased in 60% of local areas in Great Britain between 2019 and 2020; this was compared with increases seen in 40% of local areas.
- Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, South Tyneside, Glasgow City and Inverclyde were in the top 10 areas with the highest percentage of workless households in both 2019 and 2020.
- West Berkshire, Richmond upon Thames, Ealing, Wokingham and Surrey were in the top 10 areas with the lowest percentage of workless households in both 2019 and 2020.
Annual Population Survey (APS) responses have been weighted to new populations derived using growth rates from HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) Real Time Information (RTI), to allow for different trends during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. This change to the weighting will give improved estimates of both rates and levels.
2. Workless households for the regions across the UK data
Households by combined economic activity status of household members by local authority
Dataset | Released 19 October 2021
Numbers and percentages of working, mixed and workless households for local authorities, annual.
Rankings of percentages of workless households for counties and unitary authority areas in Great Britain
Dataset | Released 19 October 2021
Quarterly and historical data on people living in UK households by age and combined economic Rankings of the percentage of workless households for upper tier local authorities in Great Britain, annual.
Rankings of measures of household economic activity for counties and unitary authority areas in Great Britain
Dataset | Released 19 October 2021
Rankings of the percentages of workless, working and mixed households for upper tier local authorities in Great Britain.
Reasons given by people living in workless households for not working by country and region
Dataset | Released 19 October 2021
Percentages of types of economic inactivity and unemployment in workless households by UK country and English region.
3. Measuring the data
Annual Population Survey (APS) household datasets are used for analysis of family or household characteristics. For all analysis in this bulletin a household is defined as containing at least one person aged 16 to 64 years. This bulletin focuses on the economic status of household members. For example the:
- number of working households, where all adults are in employment
- number of mixed households, where some adults are in employment and some not in employment
- number of workless households, where no adults are in employment
Coronavirus
For information on how labour market data sources are affected by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, see the article published on 6 May 2020, detailing some of the challenges that we have faced in producing estimates.
An article published on 11 December 2020 compares our labour market data sources and discusses some of the main differences.
Labour Force Survey (LFS) responses published from 15 July 2021 have been reweighted to new populations using growth rates from HM Revenue and Customs' (HMRC's) Real Time Information (RTI), to allow for different trends during the coronavirus pandemic. Our Impact of reweighting on Labour Force Survey key indicators, UK: 2020 article explains the reweighting methodology, which gives improved estimates of both rates and levels. This also affects the Household Annual Population Survey estimates used in the bulletin.
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