Employment and unemployment status of individuals broken down by age and local authority

You asked

Under the Freedom of Information Act, and In reference to this data set, I would like to know the following:

• The employment status of individuals aged 50 or over broken down by each local authority in the UK
• The employment status of individuals aged 65 or over broken down by each local authority in the UK

Please divide the data using the same categories in this data set: 'Employment (level and rate); unemployment (level and rate); activity (level and rate) and inactivity (level and rate)'.

If you cannot provide data broken down by local authority, then please break the data down by postcode areas in the UK. If that is not possible, then please break the data down by NUTS 3. If that is not possible, then please break the data down by counties in the UK. If that is not possible, then please break the data down by regions in the UK.

I would like the data broken down for each of the last ten years with a year-end date of June 30, or whichever year-end is most convenient. If you cannot provide data for each of the last ten years, then please provide data for each of the last five years. If that is not possible, then please provide data for each of the last three years. If that is not possible, then please provide data for each of the most recent two years.

We said

Thank you for your request.

Estimates of the number of people who are in employment, economically active or economically inactive by age and local authority, sourced from the Annual Population Survey (APS), are available on the Nomis website via the following link: https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/. They can be accessed as follows:

1. On the Nomis homepage, select 'Query data' under 'Data Downloads'.

2. Select 'Annual Population Survey/Labour Force Survey' then select 'Current' then choose 'annual population survey (Dec 2004 to Mar 2020)'.

3. On the next page you can create your data extract by making appropriate selections from the 'Geography', 'Date' and 'Variable' categories:

4. Under 'Geography' select 'All' next to the 'local authorities: county/unitary (as of April 2020)' or 'local authorities: district/unitary (as of April 2020)' categories.

5. Under 'Date' tick whichever 12-month periods you are interested in between January to December 2004 and April 2019 to March 2020.
6. Under 'Variable' choose the 'Employment rate by age' category and then you can tick the 'Employment rate - aged 50+' and 'Employment rate - aged 65+' options.

7. Once you've made your selections you can download the data in the format of your choice (note that, in the downloaded file, the 'numerator' is equivalent to the level and the 'percent' is equivalent to the rate).

8. Repeat steps 3 and 4 for the 'Economic activity rate by age' and 'Economically inactive by age' variables.

Unfortunately, unemployment levels/rates by age and local authority are not available on Nomis.  It is possible to estimate them by deduction using the economically active and employment figures but, as those figures are rounded, but it is not possible to get exact estimates.  If unemployment estimates by age and region are sufficient for your needs, then these are available by choosing 'annual population survey - regional - labour market status by age' at Step 2 above.  

Alternatively, the breakdown you require could be created as part of our bespoke service. Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, Public Authorities are not obliged to create datasets in response to requests. Therefore, such a service would fall outside of the Freedom of Information regime and would be subject to legal frameworks, disclosure control, resources and agreement of costs where appropriate. If you would like to enquire about obtaining these estimates, please contact the customer services team of ONS's Social Surveys Division at socialsurveys@ons.gov.uk.

Another route would be to access the anonymised APS datasets at the UK Data Service if you are able to run your own analysis. Data can be downloaded free of charge for non-commercial purposes but if charges are applicable, you will be notified during the ordering process. Details of how to access the data can be found here: http://ukdataservice.ac.uk/get-data/how-to-access.aspx.