Unemployment in the United Kingdom
Unemployment in the United Kingdom is measured by the Office for National Statistics and in the three months to September 2016 the headline unemployment rate stood at 4.8%, or 1.6 million people. This is a reduction in unemployed people of 146,000 from a year earlier, and is the lowest jobless rate since 2005. The ONS said the employment rate, or percentage of people in work for those aged between 16 and 64, was 74.5% for the three months to September. This is the joint highest employment rate since comparable records began in 1971. There were 31.8 million people in work, 461,000 more than a year earlier.
The figures are compiled through the Labour Force Survey, which asks a sample of 53,000 households and is conducted every 3 months.
Unemployment levels and rates are published each month by the Office for National Statistics in the Labour Market Statistical Bulletin. Estimates are available by sex, age, duration of unemployment and by area of the UK.
The definition of unemployment used by the Office for National Statistics is based on the internationally agreed and recommended definition from the International Labour Organisation (ILO) – an agency of the United Nations. Use of this definition allows international comparisons of unemployment rates.
Unemployed people are defined as those aged 16 or over who are without work, available to start work in the next two weeks and who have either:
Those who are without work who do not meet the criteria of unemployment are classed as “out of the labour force”, otherwise known as “economically inactive”. For example, a person who wants a job but is not available for work due to sickness or disability would be classed as economically inactive, not unemployed.
A short video explaining the basic labour market concepts of employment, unemployment and economic inactivity is available on the ONS YouTube channel.
In the UK the official unemployment rate is defined as the percentage of the labour force that is classed as unemployed.
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