Labour Market and Welfare

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 Vicky Stone, Gemma Keane, or Gillian Fairbairn for more information.

Planned Work

Published Correspondence – Labour Market and Welfare domain

Publications – Labour Market and Welfare domain