Labour Market and Welfare

Last updated on Monday 26 February 2024

The Labour Market and Welfare theme includes statistics measuring different aspects of work and jobs and covers people’s employment, working patterns and the types of work they do. The theme also covers any earnings and benefits they receive.

In the first quarter of 2023/24, we published our findings on a range of labour market and welfare statistics, including;

the latest findings from our review of ONS’s transformation of the Labour Force Survey (July 2023)
our assessment of HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimates of earnings and employment from Pay as You Earn Real Time Information ( PAYE RTI) UK (June 2023)
our compliance check of Benefit Sanctions statistics (June 2023)

We continue to explore public concerns/queries about labour market and welfare statistics through our casework, working alongside statistic producers. For example, the Department for Work and Pension (DWP) responded earlier this year to our highlighting of a lack of statistics on Universal Credit Work Capability Assessments.

As the cost-of-living crisis continues and as explored in our blog we want to ensure that statistics used to help measure the impact on household incomes, in particular, for those people living in poverty are robust, accurate and timely. We continue to follow-up on our recommendations for our income-based poverty review, with a latest guest blog highlighting some progress made in this important area.

More recently, we started our review of DWP’s Personal Independence Payment statistics and are continuing to provide regulatory support to the ONS as it transforms the Labour Force Survey. In parallel we have also agreed to review the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency’s (NISRA) development of the NI Labour Market Survey.

In 2023/24, we look forward to continuing our engagement with statistics producers across the UK, more details of which can be found in our Rolling Regulatory Work Programme.

Contact our regulators for this domain via regulation@statistics.gov.uk

Planned Work

Project	Geography	Project Type	Timescale
Personal Independence Payment statistics (Department for Work and Pensions)	England and Wales	Assessment	July-Dec 2023
Labour Force Survey transformation (Office for National Statistics and Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency)	Great Britain and Northern Ireland	Compliance Checks	Continuing from 2022/23
Systemic review of Income-based Poverty Statistics (Department for Work and Pensions, Office for National Statistics, HM Revenue and Customs)	United Kingdom	Review	Continuing from 2022/23
Statistics from the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (Office for National Statistics and Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency)	United Kingdom and Northern Ireland	Compliance Checks	2023/24
Disability Payment Statistics in Scotland (Social Security Scotland)	Scotland	Compliance Checks	2023/24
Fraud and Error in the Benefit System (Department for Work and Pensions)	Great Britain	Compliance Checks	2023/24
Household Financial Statistics Transformation (Office for National Statistics)	United Kingdom	Review	2023/24