FOI-2023-1091
You asked
I would like to know: In what year the Office for National Statistics started collecting data related to worklessness/workless households? Why this began to be collected (i.e. was this at the request of the government at the time)? Where I can access data sets relating to levels of worklessness since records began to the present day?
We said
Thank you for your request.
Statistics on working and workless households are produced by combining information already collected as part of the Labour Force Survey (LFS) in a particular way, based on the labour market statuses of all individuals within a single household. This work was initially carried out in 1998 for periods from spring 1990 to spring 1998. However, the series of consistent UK working and workless household statistics that we use today starts from spring 1996, following the expansion of the survey to Northern Ireland. Initially household datasets were only produced once a year, for April to June. Later, in 2004 this was expanded to twice a year and in 2014 to four times a year.
We do not have a record of an original request to produce household level statistics to know whether this was an internally or externally driven development. More information on the history of the development of household datasets is available in the following link: Volume 8 of the Labour Force Survey User Guided.
Our full timeseries of statistics on working and workless households are included as part of each quarterly release. The release includes multiple tables looking at the combined economic status of households, the people within those households and the children in those households and is accessible via the following link: Working and Workless Households.