Regional labour market statistics in the UK: Feb 2017

Regional, local authority and parliamentary constituency breakdowns of changes in UK employment, unemployment, economic inactivity and other employment-related statistics.

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Contact:
Email Bob Watson

Release date:
15 February 2017

Next release:
15 March 2017

1. Main points

For the 3 months ending December 2016, the highest employment rate in the UK was in the South East (78.6%) and the lowest was in Northern Ireland (70.0%). The employment rate estimates for those aged 16 to 64 for October to December 2016 compared with July to September 2016, showed few large increases or decreases for the regions and countries of the UK.

For the 3 months ending December 2016, the highest unemployment rate in the UK was in the North East (7.0%) and the lowest was in the South East (3.4%). The unemployment rate estimates for October to December 2016 compared with July to September 2016, are showing few large changes for the regions of the UK.

For January 2017, the highest Claimant Count rate in the UK was in the North East (3.9%) and the lowest was in the South East (1.2%). Compared with December 2016, all regions saw a decrease in the seasonally adjusted Claimant Count rate.

For the 3 months ending December 2016, the highest economic inactivity rate in the UK was in Northern Ireland (25.9%) and the lowest was in the South East (18.7%). The largest changes in the economic inactivity rate, compared with the same period last year, were in Scotland, which increased by 1.7 percentage points and the East Midlands, which decreased by 1.7 percentage points.

Between June 2016 and September 2016, the largest increase in workforce jobs in the UK was in the South West, at 41,000. The largest decrease was in Scotland at 27,000.

In September 2016, the region with the highest proportion of workforce jobs in the service sector was London at 92.5%, which had increased by 0.6 percentage points since June 2016. The East Midlands had the highest proportion of jobs in the production sector at 13.8%.

The highest average actual weekly hours worked, for the 12 months ending September 2016, was in London at 33.5 hours and lowest in the South West at 31.3 hours. For full-time workers, it was highest in London at 38.2 hours and for part-time workers it was highest in Northern Ireland at 17.1 hours.

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2. In this bulletin

This bulletin shows the latest main labour market statistics for the regions and countries of the UK, along with statistics for local authorities, travel-to-work areas and parliamentary constituencies.

Data for Northern Ireland, although included in this bulletin, are available separately, in full, in the Northern Ireland Labour Market Report on the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) website.

Updated this month

Labour Force Survey estimates for the period October to December 2016
Claimant Count for January 2017

Also in this release

Public and private sector employment for September 2016
Workforce jobs estimates for September 2016
Annual Population Survey estimates for the period October 2015 to September 2016

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3. Summary of latest regional labour market statistics

Table 1 shows the latest estimates for employment, unemployment and economic inactivity for October to December 2016 and a comparison with the previous quarter (July to September 2016). Comparing non-overlapping periods (October to December 2016 with July to September 2016) provides a more robust short-term comparison. Table 2 shows the latest Claimant Count rate for January 2017 and shows how these figures compare with the previous month (December 2016) and the previous year (January 2016).