Work and worklessness
Key points
- The proportion of working-age adults living in London who are in paid work (the 'work rate') is below the England average in both Inner and Outer London. About 35% of working-age adults in Inner London and 27% in Outer London are not working.
- London's work rate is higher than other large cities such as Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham.
- The boroughs with the highest proportions of working-age adults lacking but wanting work are in Inner London. In Greenwich, Hackney, Westminster and Camden, about one in six working-age adults are not working but would like to.
- The unemployment rate among young adults is higher in London than in the rest of England: about 20% in both Inner and Outer London in the middle years of this decade. Inner London has a higher rate than Outer London, although the proportion in the former has fallen since the mid 1990s and risen in the latter over the same period.
- Inner London has by far the highest proportion of children living in workless households of any region in England: an average of one in three children in the middle years of this decade. However, this proportion has fallen since the mid 1990s, unlike in Outer London where the proportion has remained at one in five children.
- A lower proportion of lone parents in London are in paid work than in the rest of England. Although this proportion rose in both Inner and Outer London in the late 1990s it has climbed no further since about 2001. By contrast, the proportion in the rest of England continued to rise through to 2007.
- The fact that work rates are lower in London accounts for one-third of the higher (or 'excess') child poverty rate in London compared with the rest of England
Find out more about Work and worklessness by visiting the indicators in this section, listed on the right.
This section of the site looks at work and worklessness with reference to three categories of working-age adults who are not doing paid work: people who are 'unemployed', people who are 'lacking but wanting paid work' and people who are 'lacking but not wanting paid work'. Children in workless households and lone parents work rates are also discussed.
Terms such as 'lack' and 'want' are inherently neutral and are used as such here. In particular, people can have perfectly good reasons for not wanting paid work. They could be spending their time doing non-paid work, including caring for relatives or friends. Or they may be sick or disabled. Visit the glossary for more detailed definitions.
One of the main purposes of this section is to highlight the longer term changes that have taken place since the mid to late 1990s. Recent changes, and in particular those to do with the recession, are not examined as the data is not yet available
Relevant Indicators
Glossary
Inner London:
Camden, Hackney, Hammersmith & Fulham, Haringey, Islington, Kensington & Chelsea, Lambeth, Lewisham, Newham, Southwark, Tower Hamlets, Wandsworth, Westminster
Outer London:
Barking & Dagenham, Barnet, Bromley, Bexley, Brent, Croydon, Ealing, Enfield, Greenwich, Harrow, Havering, Hillingdon, Hounslow, Kingston upon Thames, Merton, Redbridge, Richmond upon Thames, Sutton, Waltham Forest
Low pay:
The most commonly used threshold is 60% of median male full-time hourly earnings. This was £7.50 in 2008 and is the threshold used throughout this website.
Workless :
People who are not working but want a job and those people who are officially unemployed make up a group who can be described as 'lacking work but wanting work'. Anyone else of working-age who is not working is therefore 'lacking work but not wanting work'. The total workless population therefore includes those lacking and wanting work as well as those lacking but not wanting work.
Unemployed:
Someone wanting and actively seeking work who is available to start a full-time job straightaway