Labour Market and Welfare

Last updated on Friday 13 September 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.

Since the start of 2024, we have published our findings on a range of labour market and welfare statistics, including:

Our assessment of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) Personal Independence Payment statistics (February 2024)
Our progress report on the Office for National Statistics’ (ONS) reintroduced Labour Force Survey (LFS)-derived labour market statistics (July 2024)

We continue to explore public concerns/queries about labour market and welfare statistics through our casework, working alongside statistic producers.

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. We have also published an explainer statement about income-based poverty.

More recently, we started our review of the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency’s (NISRA) development of the NI Labour Market Survey alongside providing ongoing support to ONS as it transforms the Labour Force Survey.

In 2024/25, 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
Labour Force Survey transformation (Office for National Statistics and Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency)	Great Britain and Northern Ireland	Compliance Check	Continuing from 2023/24
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
Family Resources Survey (Department for Work and Pensions)	United Kingdom	Compliance Check	In progress
Disability Payment Statistics in Scotland (Social Security Scotland)	Scotland	Compliance Check	In progress
Fraud and Error in the Benefit System (Department for Work and Pensions)	Great Britain	Compliance Check	Not yet started
Statistics on Employment and Earnings from Pay As You Earn Real Time Information (PAYE RTI) (HM Revenue and Customs and Office for National Statistics)	United Kingdom	Assessment	Follow-up from 2023/24