Unemployment and Economic Inactivity: Rural-Urban Analysis

• Economic Factsheet: Unemployment and Economic Inactivity - Rural-Urban Analysis
  Download this factsheet as a PDF

Unemployment is an important indicator of the state of the economy. There are several measures which can be used to show levels of unemployment and economic inactivity:

• Unemployment rate – Often called the ILO unemployment rate, this measure assesses the number of jobless people who want to work, are available to work and are actively seeking employment. This measure is usually higher than the claimant rate as not all people looking for work are either eligible or choose to claim JSA.
• Economic inactivity – This is a broader measure of people who are economically inactive for a range of reasons, including students, people who are unable to work due to illness, retired people and those looking after family/ home.

This briefing looks in detail at the theme of unemployment and economic inactivity in Somerset using the 2011 Census data to give a snapshot. Each table is broken down into urban and rural figures, based upon the ONS classification of output areas.

Unemployment by gender and age (2011)

• Somerset has a lower unemployment rate than the national average (3% compared to 4.4%). Within the County, the unemployment rate is highest in urban areas (3.5%) and lowest rural hamlets/isolated areas (1.9%).
• Compared to the national level, Somerset has low levels of long-term unemployment and proportions of unemployed people who have never worked. However these rates are also higher in urban areas than in rural areas.
• Unemployment rates are consistently higher for men than women, across both urban and rural areas.
• 9.3% of young people aged 16-24 in Somerset are unemployed and this rate is higher still in urban areas (10.4%).

(click to enlarge table)

Unemployment by ethnicity (2011)

• Unemployment rates in the ‘mixed’ and ‘black’ ethnic groups are higher than other groups, almost double the Somerset level at 5.8% and 5.6% respectively. This trend is mirrored at national level.
• Unemployment rates in urban areas are higher than or equal to the Somerset level in all ethnic groups except the ‘black’ group. ‘Black’ unemployment is more of a prominent issue in rural areas, with 10.6% of Somerset’s black population in rural/isolated areas unemployed.

(click to enlarge table)

Economic Inactivity (2011)

• The majority of Somerset’s economically inactive residents are retired (58.3%). This proportion is even higher in rural areas with 63.5%.
• Urban areas have a higher proportion of students than rural areas (13.2% compared to 10.9%).
• There are concentrations of people looking after home/family in urban (13.4%) and very sparse rural areas (12.6%).

(click to enlarge table)