Liverpool tops 2010 workless household UK survey, says ONS
Saturday, 10 September 2011 12:11
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has released details of the areas in the UK that have the highest proportion of workless households.
Liverpool had the highest proportion, with 31.9 per cent of households containing no-one who worked. Two other areas in the UK had more than three out of every 10 households with no-one in work. These were Nottingham (31.6 per cent) and Glasgow (30.7 per cent).
The figures mirror last years’ survey, where again these three cities had the highest proportion of workless households, although for Liverpool and Glasgow the percentage did fall slightly from 32.1 and 31.1 per cent respectively.
Since data began to be collected in 2004, Liverpool has been at the top of this list in five of the seven years and was in the top three on the other two occasions.
Being sick or disabled was the main reason given by respondents as to why they were unable to work in Liverpool and Glasgow. However, in Nottingham, due to its many universities, the most popular reason was that respondents were studying.
Oxfordshire and Surrey were the areas with the lowest proportion of workless households with 11.2 per cent each. They were closely followed by Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire and North East Moray with 11.3 per cent.
Across the whole of the UK, 18.9 per cent of households contained no-one who worked, with Somerset (19 per cent) and Monmouthshire & Newport (18.7 per cent) closest to the national average.
Retirement was the reason that 19 per cent of respondents aged between 16 and 64 gave as the reason for not working. The rate was much higher (27 per cent) in the South West than in London (ten per cent), reflecting both the popularity of the south coast as a place to retire and London as a place to work and earn.
The survey revealed that there are 3.9 million workless households in the UK containing 5.4 million people. Overall, the reasons given by people as to why they are not working were sickness (28 per cent), unemployed (19 per cent), retired (19 per cent), looking after the family or home (16 per cent), study (12 per cent) and other (seven per cent).
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