Profiles (local areas)

This report looks at the Leeds economy with measures of employment, unemployment, jobs and salaries, and benefits.
For information about wards click on the map on the  Leeds Observatory home page
The council’s economic policy team also produces a range of research and regular briefing papers on the Leeds economy - Leeds Economy Handbook

Source abbreviations:
ONS APS = Office for National Statistics Annual Population Survey
ONS ASHE = Office for National Statistics Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings
ONS IDBR = Office for National Statistics Inter Departmental Business Register

All people aged 16 and over may be classified into one of three labour market groups - employed, unemployed or economically inactive.  
The economically active population covers both people in work and unemployed people. 'Unemployed' means people are looking for work and available for work.

Please note:
The employment rate and unemployment rate are worked out slightly differently so the three headline figures above don't quite add up to 100%.
The official figures for employment, unemployment and inactivity are from a national survey and are not available at ward level. The local authority figures are published quarterly but cover a whole year.

For a more detailed explanation, see A guide to labour market statistics

Employment rate is the proportion of the population aged 16 to 64 in employment, including part-time work.
For a more detailed explanation, see A guide to labour market statistics

Economically inactive rate is the proportion of people aged 16 to 64 who are without a job and who are not seeking work or available for work.
The main economically inactive groups are students, people looking after family and home, long-term sick and disabled, temporarily sick and disabled, retired people and discouraged workers.
At local authority level, the numbers for 'discouraged' or 'temporary sick' are small so cannot be published on the chart.

For a more detailed explanation, see A guide to labour market statistics

For a longer timescale and briefing notes, see Leeds Economy Handbook

The claimant count is not a good measure of change over time. Under Universal Credit a broader span of claimants are required to look for work than under Jobseeker’s Allowance, which has the effect of increasing the claimant count. 
To address this, the ONS have produced a new dataset for looking at change over time. This is the alternative claimant count and it models what the claimant count would have been if Universal Credit had been in place since 2013.
Coming soon…  
Chart showing change over time in the number of people claiming unemployment-related benefits - using alternative claimant count.

Rise in people claiming unemployment related benefits (claimant count) in Leeds during the Coronavirus crisis.

This section looks at child poverty and fuel poverty.
For more information about poverty and low income, see the Leeds Poverty Fact Book
See also our resources on Index of Multiple Deprivation

The new HMRC and DWP combined Local Measure for Children in Low Income Families replaces DWP’s Children in out-of-work benefit households and HMRC’s Personal Tax Credits: Children in low income families.
It is designed to provide a more coherent picture of children in low-income families. For more information about the data, see Children in low income families local area statistics

In Leeds, 16.8% of households (57,492 households) are experiencing fuel poverty (2019).
Fuel poverty is worked out by looking at low income and high energy costs.
For more information, see the government's Fuel poverty methodology