You asked
Could you kindly confirm the following:
The current total of agency workers in Northern Ireland? and;
The current total of zero-hour contract workers in Northern Ireland?
We said
Thank you for your request asking about the current total of agency workers in Northern Ireland and the current total of zero-hour contract workers in Northern Ireland.
Information on the number of people in employment on a zero-hour contract in October-December 2017 (most recent release) can be found at;
Unfortunately, we do not hold Annual Population Survey (APS) or Labour Force Survey (LFS) tables showing the current total of agency workers in Northern Ireland. However, you can find estimates for the number of agency workers who are temporary employees in the UK at;
The requested information can be obtained from our customer services team within the Social Surveys Division using our bespoke service for analysis. Special extracts and tabulations of data are available to order (subject to legal frameworks, disclosure control, resources and agreements of costs, where appropriate). Such enquiries should be made to socialsurveys@ons.gov.uk
As this information is already available to you via this route, we believe that s.21(1) applies to this request and the information does not have to be supplied under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act. S.21(1) is an absolute exemption and no consideration of the public interest test needs to be applied.
Another route would be to access the LFS or the APS datasets at the UK Data Service if you are able to run your own analysis. You can access anonymised datasets from the UK Data Service.
Details of how to access the data can be found here - http://ukdataservice.ac.uk/get-data/how-to-access.aspx
Data can be downloaded free of charge for non-commercial purposes but if charges are applicable, you will be notified during the ordering process.
Advice for commercial users – https://www.ukdataservice.ac.uk/get-data/how-to-access/registration/commercialusers
Charges - http://ukdataservice.ac.uk/get-data/how-to-access/charges.aspx
List of LFS and APS datasets at the UK Data Service - https://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/
LFS and APS user guides- https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/methodologies/labourforcesurveyuserguidance