Workless households
A workless household is one which contains at least one person of working age and where no-one aged 16 or over is in employment. The workless household rate is the number of workless households as a percentage of all working-age households.
The 'Work and worklessness among households' First Release publishes data on workless households and the people and children living in them by type of household, region and ethnic group. The release is published in August each year. Of particular interest are the figures on numbers and proportions of workless households and children living in them. These are included in a number of Public Service Agreement targets, such as the Government’s target to reduce the proportion of children in workless households.
The data are from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) household datasets, which have been designed specifically to be used for analyses at the household and family level. A technical report in the August 1998 edition of Labour Market Trends describes how and why these datasets have been produced.
The Labour Force Survey household datasets are available for April to June back to 1992 and October to December back to 2004.
