Employment, Unemployment and Gender

There are some notable differences between males and females when it comes to labour force data for Somerset, most notably regarding levels of unemployment and self-employment.

The charts above compare labour force data for males and females in Somerset, and UK. -Chart 1 Employment Rate, Chart 2 % who are Economically Inactive and Chart 3 Unemployment Rate

About the data

The Annual Population Survey (APS) is a continuous household survey, covering the UK.  It uses data from the Labour Force Survey (LFS).  Datasets contain 12 months of data and responses from 155,000 households and 320,000 people, broken down on a quarterly basis.

The gender gap in unemployment is defined as the difference between female and male unemployment rates.

The latest unemployment rates (December 2022) for Somerset were higher for men 3.4% (4,800 unemployed) than women 2.6% (3,000 unemployed).  The female unemployment was 0.5 percentage points lower than Somerset’s unemployment.

Employment rates for males are generally higher than females.  The difference within Somerset is greater, with a male employment rate of 83.3% compared to a female employment rate of 72.1%.  The economic activity rate for somerset has increased over the last year, however the female activity rate has been largely stable.

Somerset’s Economically inactive population has increased over the last year.  The percentage of female inactivity (26%) has been consistently higher than that of men (13.7%) over the years in Somerset.  At the UK level, the inactivity rate for males (18.1%) is almost 7.1 percentage points lower than it is for females (25.2%).

A higher proportion of men (12.4%) than women (10%) are self-employed in Somerset.

For definitions of employment, unemployment, and economic inactivity, please see the separate page on ‘Employment’.

Source: ONS, NOMIS, Annual Population Survey Jan 2022-Dec 2022