Proportion of working age population in self employment, 2008
Productivity and gross household income in the South West are below the UK averages but the employment rate is higher and the region has the largest proportion of working-age self-employed people in the UK.
The South West was responsible for almost 8 per cent of the UK’s gross value added (GVA) − a key measure of the economic performance of a region. The region’s headline GVA was £94 billion in 2007. More than half of this was produced by the Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and North Somerset sub-region, which includes Bristol and Swindon.
Productivity, as measured by GVA per hour worked, was 94 per cent of the UK rate in 2007, the fourth highest of the English regions. This position has changed little in recent years.
The South West was responsible for 15 per cent of the UK’s agriculture and fishing GVA and 18 per cent of mineral mining and quarrying in 2006. The hotels and restaurants sector is also a relatively large contributor to the South West economy. In 2007 over 9 per cent of jobs were tourism-related, the highest regional proportion.
Manufacturing produces a similar proportion of GVA to the national average, but within the sector, manufacture of transport and electrical equipment are both much more important to the region’s GVA than to the UK as a whole.
GVA per head, at £18,200 in 2007, was the fourth highest among the English regions, 9 per cent below the UK figure. Gross disposable household income (GDHI) of South West residents was also the fourth highest, at £14,200 per head. It ranged from £12,000 in Plymouth to £15,400 in Wiltshire.
The employment rate for the region’s working-age residents was third highest among English regions, at 76.5 per cent in May to July 2009. In the year to this date the unemployment rate (for those aged 16 plus) rose from 4.0 to 6.7 per cent. Only the West Midlands region had a larger percentage point increase.
The South West has the largest proportion of self-employed people in the UK, over 11 per cent of working-age people in 2008, with Cornwall having more than 16 per cent.
Notes
Employment and unemployment rates are seasonally adjusted Labour Force Survey headline indicators.
Self employment data from Annual Population Survey, January – December 2008.
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Regional Trends 41