Notthingham had highest proportion of jobless households in UK

Nottingham had the highest proportion of households where there were no adults in work in the UK last year, new official figures say.
A total of 30.1% of households that included an adult of working age were workless last year, up from 26.4% a year earlier.
The increase was largely down to a rise in the number of people giving sickness or disability as a reason for not working, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.
It was the first time since ONS records began in 2004 that Nottingham has had the highest proportion of workless households.
The city has overtaken Glasgow, which had 29.8% workless households in 2013 – down from 30.2% in 2012.
Liverpool and Wolverhampton were also in the top five areas for households with no paid employment.
The ONS said a common link among some of the areas where the figures were high was that they were all heavily industrialised in the past.
Nottingham, for example, had a strong and prosperous textile industry during the Industrial Revolution but it declined during the 1950s and 60s.
“Glasgow was once a major force in shipbuilding as well as other engineering but competition overseas has seen that decline since the 1960s,” the ONS said.
“Liverpool had a large manufacturing base and one of the UK’s largest docks, which have both been in decline since the 1970s.”
Wolverhampton, meanwhile, saw a decline in its iron and steel industry during the 20th century.
“Sickness, both long-term and temporary, was the main reason given for not working by people aged 16-64 years living in workless households across all the regions of England and countries of the UK,” the ONS said.
Other reasons given were unemployment, early retirement, study and looking after family members.
Glasgow and Liverpool – where there were no adults working in 27.2% of households – were among the top five cities and regions for workless households for a 10th consecutive year.
The places with the lowest proportion of households without work were concentrated in the south-east of England.
The lowest was West Sussex at 9%, followed by Surrey (9.7%) and Berkshire (10.5%).
A separate report published by the ONS last month showed the number of households nationwide where there are no working adults has fallen to the lowest level since 1996.
A total of nearly 16% of UK households were workless the second quarter of 2014, down 1.4 percentage points from a year earlier. It was the largest fall since records began 18 years ago.
The highest percentage of households without work in Wales was in the central valleys – comprising Merthyr Tydfil and Rhondda Cynon Taff – with 23.8%.
Some 23% of homes in Northern Ireland had no adults working and 20% in Scotland. There were 19.8% in Wales and 16.6% in England.
The headline workless numbers include student households, and excluding them from the figures pushes Nottingham into third place total to 27.3%, while Glasgow moves into first place at 28.6%, followed by East Ayrshire and North Ayrshire mainland.
“The exclusion of students only changed the ranking of the top three workless areas but did not change the overall composition of the top 10 workless areas,” the ONS said.
“In January to December 2013, excluding student households the UK average workless rate was 16.7%.
“This was 0.5 percentage points lower than the rate including student households. London and the East Midlands were the regions with the highest percentage of people not working due to study.”

Culled from The Guardian.