Workless households for regions across the UK: 2019

• The proportion of workless households decreased in more local areas of Great Britain than it increased between 2018 and 2019.

• In 2019, the areas with the highest percentage of workless households were generally located outside the south of England.

• Not all locations outside the south of England had high percentages of workless households; 10 of the 50 areas with the lowest percentages in 2019 were in Scotland, the Midlands and the north of England.

• Hartlepool, Glasgow City, South Tyneside and Dundee City were in the top five areas with the highest percentage of workless households in both 2018 and 2019.

• West Berkshire and Bracknell Forest were in the top five areas with the lowest percentage of workless households in both 2018 and 2019.

This bulletin provides statistics on the economic status of households and the people living in them in the UK at a regional and local level. The statistics are taken from the Annual Population Survey (APS), cover the period January to December 2019 and only include households where at least one person is aged 16 to 64 years.

Because of the larger sample size at local level within the APS, compared with the Labour Force Survey (LFS), these statistics provide the most timely and highest-quality estimates of the economic status of households for local areas and other sub-regional geographical breakdowns within Great Britain.

At a regional level, the larger sample size of the APS, compared with the LFS, allows a comparison of reasons why people within workless households are not in employment.

How these data should be interpreted

The APS household datasets can be used for analysis of family or household characteristics at the country, regional or local level. This bulletin particularly focuses on the economic status of households and household members in counties and unitary authority areas. For example:

• the number of households with all, some or no people in employment

• the number of adults in each of these household types

• the number of children in each of these household types

Analysis of LFS household datasets was released in Working and workless households in the UK: January to March 2019, which uses household data from the LFS covering the period January to March 2019.

The LFS data should be used for the most up-to-date analysis of the economic status of households for:

• the UK as a whole

• England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland

• the regions of England (except for analysis of reasons for non-employment in workless households)

The main uses and users of the data and reasons for production

Users of the data in this bulletin include government departments, devolved administrations, local authorities, independent research organisations and members of the media and general public. These data are used to understand how the economic status of households at a local level compares with that in other local areas within the UK and to examine patterns in the data over time.

More quality and methodology information on strengths, limitations, appropriate uses, and how the data were created is available in the Annual Population Survey QMI.

Concepts and definitions

Estimates within this statistical bulletin only cover households that contain at least one person aged 16 to 64 years.

A household is defined as a single person, or a group of people living at the same address who have the address as their only or main residence and either share one main meal a day or share living accommodation (or both).

A working household is a household that contains at least one person aged 16 to 64 years, where all individuals aged 16 years and over are in employment.

A mixed household is a household that contains at least one person aged 16 to 64 years, where at least one person aged 16 years and over is in employment and at least one other is either unemployed or inactive.

A workless household is a household that contains at least one person aged 16 to 64 years, where no-one aged 16 years or over is in employment.

Children refer to all children under 16 years old.

Sampling variability

The datasets include measures of sampling variability (in hidden columns in each spreadsheet) and also include shading that indicates estimates that are not considered reliable for practical purposes. These data can be summed to provide more robust estimates for combined areas.

Household datasets

The figures in this bulletin come from APS household datasets. These are weighted differently to person datasets, in that each person in a household is given the same weight. This ensures that weighted estimates at the household level are consistent. When using the household datasets to give estimates of the total number of people, the different weighting procedure will give marginally different estimates to those from the person datasets.

The most up-to-date analysis of the economic status of households at a national and regional level is available in the bulletin, Working and workless households in the UK: October to December 2019. These statistics come from the LFS, cover the period October to December 2019, include data for earlier years and are consistent with the headline national figure.