Employment: Disability
(asked on 14th December 2016) - View Source
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what proportion of disabled people were in employment in each year since 2009-10 by NUTS 1 region.
From 2013-14 to 2015-16 we have seen 400,000 more disabled people in employment in the UK (see points 1 to 3 in the notes section). Over the same time we have seen the overall employment rate for disabled people increase by around 3 percentage points, where it now stands at 47 per cent.
The table below shows the proportion of working age disabled people in employment by NUTS 1 region between 2010-11 and 2015-16. Please note that data is not available for 2009/10. In addition, due to changes to the definition of disability that were made in 2013, data for 2013-14 onwards cannot be compared with previous years.
The majority of the regions saw increases in their disability employment rate broadly in line with that of the UK as a whole over the period 2013-14 to 2015-16. Similarly, the number of disabled people in employment increased in every region over the period. Though due to small sample sizes in the survey used, the observed trends may not indicate statistically significant changes.
Table - The proportion of working age disabled people in employment in April to March of each year by NUTS 1 region from 2010-11 to 2015-16.
| 2010 -11 (%) | 2011 -12 (%) | 2012-13 (%) |
| 2013-14 (%) | 2014-15 (%) | 2015-16 (%) | |
North East | 40.1 | 38.0 | 39.5 | Figures pre 2013/14 should not be compared with figures from 2013/14 onwards | 38.6 | 41.2 | 40.6 | |
North West | 41.3 | 41.3 | 41.8 | 39.2 | 40.0 | 43.4 | ||
Yorkshire and Humberside | 43.7 | 43.1 | 45.6 | 43.4 | 43.6 | 46.2 | ||
East Midlands | 49.8 | 48.1 | 48.0 | 46.7 | 48.1 | 50.6 | ||
West Midlands | 42.1 | 41.1 | 44.2 | 41.9 | 43.3 | 43.7 | ||
Eastern | 53.1 | 52.1 | 53.7 | 51.6 | 55.3 | 52.0 | ||
London | 43.8 | 40.8 | 44.7 | 43.5 | 47.4 | 48.7 | ||
South East | 53.9 | 52.5 | 52.5 | 52.8 | 54.4 | 55.4 | ||
South West | 50.5 | 51.1 | 50.7 | 51.0 | 54.8 | 54.9 | ||
Wales | 39.9 | 40.2 | 42.0 | 41.6 | 42.3 | 43.3 | ||
Scotland | 44.3 | 43.9 | 42.8 | 39.7 | 42.0 | 41.8 | ||
Northern Ireland | 27.2 | 28.0 | 29.0 | 33.6 | 33.4 | 31.4 | ||
United Kingdom | 45.5 | 44.6 | 45.8 |
| 44.4 | 46.4 | 47.3 | |
Source: Annual Population Survey, April to March 2010-11 to 2015– 16.
Notes:
- Note that these figures are based on the Annual Population Survey and differ to the labour market status of disabled people figures available at the link below:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/datasets/labourmarketstatusofdisabledpeoplea08 which are based on the quarterly Labour Force Survey (LFS).
- The latest quarterly LFS figures for Q3 2016 show that the number of disabled people in work has increased by almost 600,000 since Q2 2013; currently over 3.4 million disabled people are in employment. The employment rate of disabled people has increased by around 5 percentage points over the last three years and now stands at 48%.
- The APS was used to provide a larger sample size to give regional breakdowns.
- New analysis was carried out to produce data for 2012-13 and 2013-14. The other data is publicly available from NOMIS.
- Due to changes in disability definition data for 2013-14 onwards should not be compared to data from previous years.
- The GSS harmonised definition of disability is used for data for 2013-14 onwards. This is in line with the Equality Act definition of disability. Pre 2013-14 the Disability Discrimination Act definition of disability is used.
- Percentages are rounded to the nearest 0.1 percentage point.
- Data is subject to sampling variation.
- Precision of statistics is limited by small sample sizes.
- Figures are for the working age population, comprised of people aged 16 to 64.