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Central Government has set (External) 198 priority measures for local government . The employment rate measures a local area's contribution towards the aspiration to achieve full employment, and helps to measure progress on reducing worklessness.
It is the proportion of the working age population (16-59 for females and 16-64 for males) who are in employment according to the International Labour Organisation definition. The information for the indicator is derived from the Annual Population Survey (APS). Table 1 details local working age employment rates from the APS.
Details of results for the national indicators can be found on the (External) Floor Targets Interactive section of the of the Communities and Local Government website.
The Annual Population Survey (APS) is a survey of households in Great Britain with the purpose to provide information on key social and socio-economic variables between the 10-yearly censuses. The results in this research monitor are based on findings from the APS and from its predecessor the Labour Force Survey.
The complete range of available data sets from the Annual Population Survey for all areas of the country can be downloaded from the (External) NOMIS website . This particular article looks at local employment, self-employment and economic activity results from the APS.
For the year to June 2008, there were a total of 280,128 people surveyed in Great Britain, with 6,160 of these interviews taking place in the broader Lancashire area. Broken down by the individual authorities, just over half the Lancashire interviews were undertaken in the two unitary authorities of Blackburn with Darwen and Blackpool.
The employment rate is one of the economic indicators that economists use to help understand the state of the economy. In this article the employment rate is presented as the proportion of the population of working age (16-59 for females and 16-64 for males) who are in employment. Other things being equal, regions or areas with higher employment rates are more likely to have higher standards of living because they will have a higher percentage of the population generating income.
The six-year period from 2002 to 2007 reveals that at the national level, the employment rate has remained relatively stable at around 74.2% to 74.5%. In comparison, for the North West region employment rates over the same period have consistently been below 73%, with the latest 2007 result being 72.3%.
For the 14-district Lancashire NUTS-2 area, that includes the two unitary authorities of Blackburn with Darwen and Blackpool, the six-year period saw employment rates occupy the middle ground between the higher GB rates and the lower North West rates. Given the sample size of the Labour Force Survey, it is only possible to derive a broad indication of employment rates at the broader Lancashire level rather than to be able to accurately monitor yearly changes.
The problem of data accuracy becomes far more acute at the local authority level therefore the district and unitary authority results should be viewed with extreme caution. At the district level, the sample size can be quite small, e.g., the 2007 result for Rossendale was based on just 161 respondents.
The broad indications are that high employment rates appear to be consistently recorded in Chorley, Fylde Ribble Valley and South Ribble, whilst the East Lancashire authorities of Blackburn with Darwen, Hyndburn, Burnley and Pendle have patterns of low employment rates. Blackpool also has a recorded pattern of low employment rates.
At the national level, self-employment as a proportion of the adult population has grown over the last twenty years. The period 1986 to 1990 in particular saw a high rate of growth with the proportion rising from 6.3% to 7.9%. This growth in self-employment in the 1980s was attributed to government incentives such as the small business start-up scheme, the growth in long-term unemployment, the expansion of the service sector, where self-employment is more prevalent, coupled with the decline in manufacturing, and the shift towards contracting-out of services by large employers.
In general, the self-employed are more commonly associated with skilled trade occupations, e.g. in the Construction sector, also business activity industries such as Banking, Finance and Insurance. There is also a geographic tendency towards higher self-employment levels in London and the South East.
Self-employment is generally entered into most frequently after the age of 30. This is partly due to the need for people to acquire sufficient experience and financial resources. The proportion of the self-employed therefore is found to increase with age, especially for those over the retirement ages of 59/64.
Table 2 has self-employment data for Great Britain and the two Lancashire areas. For the past few years at the national level, the Annual Population Survey figures have estimated the rate of self-employment to be around 13.0%. For the Lancashire County Council area (NUTS-3) area, and the broader Lancashire NUTS-2 area that includes the two unitary authorities, the impression is of noticeably lower self-employment rates than the GB average.
Table 3 lists the APS employment numbers and rates by six ethnic groups for the 14-authority Lancashire NUTS-2 area, and for Great Britain. The white ethnic group predominates at both the national and county levels. The Lancashire figures reveal the low estimates classified under the 'Black' and 'Mixed' headings. The relatively small numbers classified to the various other ethnic minority groups at the county level mean that these local figures should be used as nothing more than very general guides. The numbers and percentages are subject to large margins of error.
At the national and Lancashire levels of note is the low activity rate for Pakistani/Bangladeshi. This may in part be attributable to cultural factors that reduce the propensity for woman from this ethnic group to consider paid employment. The Indian and White ethnic groups recorded the highest employment rates.
The APS results for the percentage of working people who are economically active reveal that activity rates in the broader Lancashire area have been consistently below the national average of around 78.6%. Excluding the two unitaries, the figures for the Lancashire County Council area are in most instances between the lower Lancashire NUTS-2 results and the higher rates recorded at the national level. The past three set of results however have been in excess of the national rate.
Economic activity rates incorporate people who are seeking work but who may not have a job. They are therefore higher than the employment rates detailed in Table 1.
This page was compiled by Bryan Moulding .
All enquiries from the media should be sent to Corporate.Communications@lancashire.gov.uk .
Any other questions about the content of this page may be sent to EconInfo@lancashire.gov.uk .
For all enquiries about the county council's services , contact the Customer Service Centre on 0845 0530000 (01772 530000) or at Enquiries@css.lancscc.gov.uk .
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