29/08/2012

Workless Households Decrease By 153,000

In April to June 2012 there were 3.7 million UK households with at least one member aged 16 to 64 where no-one was currently working, new figures from ONS show.

This represented 17.9 per cent of households and was a fall of 0.8 percentage points, or 153,000 households, on a year earlier, the second consecutive fall. In all, 1.8 million children lived in these households, as did 5.0 million people aged 16-64.

Sickness, both long-term and temporary, was the main reason given for not working by those people aged 16 to 64 living in workless households, accounting for 1.45 million, or around three in every ten workless people. The second most common reason given was being unemployed, accounting for 1.03 million, or around one in five. The next three most common reasons were looking after the family, retirement and study.

Some of the workless people aged 16 to 64 give study or retirement as their reason for not working. If fully retired and student households are removed, the number of households in the UK that are workless is 2.92 million.

As well as a fall in workless households there was also a fall of 36,000 in working households – those with at least one person aged 16 to 64 where all adult members are in work. In April to June 2012 there were 10.9 million such households, representing 53.0 per cent of all households. There was a rise of 246,000 in mixed households – those that contain some people in work and some who are not. The number of mixed households stood at 5.97 million, or 29.1 per cent of the total.

(CD)

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