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Lancashire and District Employment Structure
2006

January 2008

Photograph showing a man looking for a job

Introduction

The most recent detailed benchmark count of employment in Lancashire is the 2006 Annual Business Inquiry (ABI), conducted by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The ABI, first introduced in 1998, collects information on the number of employee jobs by place of work. It should be noted that the ABI estimates differ from those provided by both the Census of Population and the Labour Force Survey which include the self-employed as well as employees and in which enumeration is usually by place of residence rather than by place of work.

Overview

The 2006 ABI survey provided estimates suggesting that there were more than 610,000 employee jobs in the Lancashire NUTS-2 region in December of that year. This number was about 43,000 higher (+7.6%) than in 1998 when the Inquiry was first introduced. The 2006 employee workforce (less farm-based agricultural jobs) was divided almost equally between males and females. More than two-thirds of these employees worked on a full-time basis though there were gender differences. Close to 47% of the employee jobs filled by women were of a part-time nature (i.e. working for 30 or fewer hours per week. The profile for men remained much more heavily weighted towards full-time jobs with 85% working on a full-time basis (Table 1).

Table 1 Employee Jobs Profile, Lancashire NUTS-2, 2006
Employment Status No. of Employees % of Employees
     
Male full-time workers 262,900 43.4
Male part-time workers 45,000 7.4
Female full-time workers 156,600 25.9
Female part-time workers 141,400 23.3
Male workers 307,900 50.8
Female workers 298,000 49.2
Full-time workers 419,500 69.2
Part-time workers 186,300 30.8
     
Total 605,900 100.0
Note These figures are aggregates from which agricultural class 0100 has been excluded.
SourceONS - Annual Business Inquiry 2006

Of the total 2006 employee jobs in the Lancashire NUTS-2 area, 129,700 or over 21% were classified to the production and construction industries, less than 1% were in agriculture, forestry and fishing, and the remainder (475,000 or 78%) were in service activities of one sort or another, of which the wholesale and distributive trades, health and social work, other business activities, education, and hotels and restaurants were the largest individual components (Table 2). The Lancashire jobs represented 2.3% of the Great Britain total and a fifth of those in the North West Region.

Table 2 Employee Jobs by Industrial Sector, 2006
Sector Lancashire County Lancashire NUTS-2 North West Great Britain
No. % No. % % %
             
Agriculture, forestry and fishing 5,300 1.1 5,500 0.9 0.5 0.9
Mining, energy and water 2,400 0.5 2,400 0.4 0.3 0.6
Manufacturing 81,700 16.7 99,000 16.2 12.5 10.9
Construction 24,800 5.1 28,300 4.6 5.0 4.8
Wholesale and retail trades 82,500 16.9 102,400 16.8 17.0 16.7
Hotels and restaurants 34,600 7.1 45,700 7.5 7.0 6.8
Transport and communication 22,800 4.7 28,000 4.6 6.0 5.9
Financial intermediation 9,900 2.0 11,700 1.9 3.4 3.9
Other business services 62,000 12.7 74,900 12.3 15.8 17.3
Public administration and defence 30,100 6.2 41,100 6.7 5.6 5.5
Education 50,600 10.3 61,500 10.1 9.4 9.2
Health and social work 62,300 12.7 80,300 13.2 12.7 12.2
Other services 20,200 4.1 29,300 4.8 4.7 5.3
             
All industries and services 489,200 100.0 610,200 100.0 100.0 100.0
Source ONS - Annual Business Inquiry 2006

Employment Change

Changes to the methodology of data collection, a change to an up-dated Standard Industrial Classification (SIC,2003), together with the inclusion (for technical reasons) of a number of employee jobs based elsewhere rather than in the sub-region itself (and vice-versa), tend to confuse estimates of job changes over time. At face value, however the 2006 estimate of employee jobs in Lancashire was approximately 43,000 or 7.6% higher than in 1998. This rate of growth was respectable by the sub-region's historical standards but as in the case of a number of other economic indicators, slightly lagged that of both the UK (+8.1%) and the wider North West Region (+8.0%) (Table 3).

Table 3 Employment Change, 1998-2006
Sector Number of Employee Jobs % Change
1998 2000 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 1998-2006
                 
Agriculture, forestry and fishing 7,600 6,400 5,800 5,500 5,400 5,600 5,500 -28.1
Mining, energy and water 2,700 2,800 2,300 2,100 1,700 2,000 2,400 -9.0
Manufacturing 138,300 129,100 115,700 113,900 109,300 103,100 99,000 -28.4
Construction 21,200 28,900 34,200 30,100 36,200 33,200 28,300 +33.9
Wholesale and retail 103,500 97,300 103,600 102,100 107,100 102,300 102,400 -1.1
Hotels and restaurants 38,400 42,300 40,200 42,000 49,500 41,200 45,700 +19.1
Transport and communications 27,300 25,600 28,200 27,100 26,400 24,400 28,000 +2.6
Financial intermediation 13,500 12,100 12,000 11,500 11,600 11,400 11,700 -13.1
Other business services 45,200 56,600 62,200 62,100 63,400 69,600 74,900 +65.7
Public administration and defence 37,600 36,800 36,500 37,900 40,100 39,400 41,100 +9.5
Education 45,100 43,300 58,800 57,800 62,300 63,800 61,500 +36.4
Health and social work 65,800 70,400 68,300 74,400 79,500 83,700 80,300 +22.1
Other services 21,200 25,700 30,000 26,400 25,300 24,600 29,300 +38.3
                 
Lancashire County 449,200 454,600 476,400 475,700 494,900 485,400 489,200 +8.9
Lancashire NUTS-2 567,200 577,100 598,400 593,300 617,900 604,400 610,200 +7.6
                 
North West 2,788,600 2,835,000 2,968,400 2,973,100 3,035,700 2,987,800 3,010,700 +8.0
Great Britain 24,355,000 25,214,600 25,593,700 25,710,600 26,067,500 26,496,600 26,320,600 +8.1
Note The 2003/06 ABI data is based on the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) 2003 which differs from previous years' ABI data. This may give rise to discontinuities.
Source ONS - Annual Business Inquiry

Employment patterns over the period generally continued to reflect a shift in distribution from the production to the service industries and from direct employment in large companies to greater representation in small and medium sized enterprises. The well developed tendency for a shift from male to female employee jobs and from full-time to part-time working continued but was rather less in evidence over this more recent period than hitherto, presumably reflecting in part the sustainability of the economic up-turn encouraging employers to commit to more permanent and full-time positions. There was also some reversal of the trend from "public" to "private" employment fuelled by the expansion of expenditure in public services (particularly in health and education) set in train by government.

Structural Characteristics

Lancashire continues to have a large and exceptionally diverse economy. Apart from a handful of relatively minor and geographically specialised industries like coke ovens, the mining of uranium and thorium ores and tobacco manufacture, virtually every industrial group defined by the official Standard Industrial Classification (SIC,2003) is represented in the sub-region.

As illustrated by the broad industrial characteristics given in Table 2 above, by comparison with the nation the local economy remains particularly strong with regard to manufacturing employment: some 99,000 people or 16.2% of all employee jobs are still in this key sector compared with only 10.9% in Great Britain at large. Conversely, whilst nearly 83% of employee jobs nationally are in the heterogeneous services sector "only" 78% of local jobs are so classified. Local representation in services is rather above average in many "public service" activities like public administration and defence, education, and health and social work, and also slightly in hotels and restaurants linked to the tourism trade. However, under-representation remains particularly pronounced in activities relating to financial intermediation and other business related services. A rather more detailed industrial division analysis together with Great Britain and North West comparisons is illustrated in Table 4.

Table 4 Industrial Employment Structure, 2006
Sector % of Employee Jobs
Lancashire NUTS-2 North West Great Britain
       
Agriculture, forestry and fishing 0.9 0.5 0.9
Mining and quarrying 0.1 0.1 0.2
Food, beverages and tobacco 1.9 1.8 1.5
Textile industry 0.8 0.6 0.3
Wearing apparel; leather and leather products 0.3 0.2 0.2
Wood and wood products 0.3 0.3 0.3
Pulp, paper and paper products 0.6 0.4 0.3
Printing and publishing 0.9 0.8 1.1
Coke, petroleum products and nuclear fuel 0.3 0.4 0.1
Chemical industry 1.1 1.3 0.7
Rubber and plastic products 1.2 0.9 0.7
Other non-metallic mineral products 0.4 0.4 0.4
Basic metals 0.1 0.1 0.3
Fabricated metal products 1.6 1.2 1.2
Other machinery and equipment 1.1 0.9 1.0
Office machinery and computers 0.1 0.1 0.1
Electrical machinery and apparatus 0.4 0.4 0.4
Radio, TV, communications, etc. equipment 0.1 0.1 0.2
Medical, precision and optical instruments 0.2 0.3 0.4
Motor vehicles 0.7 0.6 0.6
Other transport equipment 2.8 0.8 0.5
Furniture and other manufacturing 1.2 0.7 0.6
Recycling 0.1 0.1 0.1
Electricity, gas and water 0.3 0.3 0.4
Construction 4.6 5.0 4.8
Sale, repair, etc. of motor vehicles 2.2 2.0 2.1
Wholesale and commission trade 4.4 4.2 4.2
Retail trade and repairs 10.2 10.8 10.5
Hotels and restaurants 7.5 7.0 6.8
Land transport 2.1 2.3 2.0
Water and air transport 0.1 0.2 0.4
Other transport activities 1.1 1.8 1.7
Post and telecommunications 1.3 1.8 1.8
Financial intermediation 1.1 2.0 2.2
Insurance and pension funding 0.2 0.7 0.7
Activities auxiliary to financial intermediation 0.6 0.8 1.0
Real estate activities 1.1 1.5 1.6
Renting of machinery and equipment 0.7 0.6 0.6
Computer and related activities 1.7 1.7 2.0
Research and development 0.1 0.2 0.4
Other business activities 8.8 11.7 12.7
Public administration and defence 6.7 5.6 5.5
Education 10.1 9.4 9.2
Health and social work 13.2 12.7 12.2
Sewage, refuse disposal, sanitation, etc. 0.4 0.4 0.4
Membership organisations 0.7 0.7 0.9
Recreational, cultural and sporting activities 2.6 2.5 2.8
Other service activities 1.1 1.1 1.2
Source ONS - Annual Business Inquiry 2006

Employment by District

The distribution and broad structure of employee jobs across Lancashire by sub-region and district authority is shown in Table 5 and Figure 1. As "job centres" the size of these districts ranges from 22,500 employee jobs in Rossendale with 3.7% of the Lancashire region total to 84,800 in Preston (13.9% of total jobs).

Table 5 Employee Jobs by Local Authority District and Sub-Region, 2006
  Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing Mining, Energy and Water Manufacturing Construction Distribution, Hotels and Restaurants
             
North Lancashire No. 1,700 1,400 27,400 8,200 50,100
% 0.9 0.7 14.1 4.2 25.8
Blackpool 100 * 3,500 1,700 18,700
Fylde 400 * 16,600 1,600 8,500
Lancaster 600 1,200 3,600 2,700 13,000
Wyre 600 * 3,700 2,300 10,000
             
Central Lancashire No. 3,000 600 22,800 11,600 51,400
% 1.4 0.3 10.7 5.4 24.1
Chorley 400 * 3,300 2,300 10,100
Preston 300 300 5,500 3,200 19,600
South Ribble 400 200 7,100 4,100 10,800
West Lancashire 1,800 * 6,900 2,100 10,900
             
Lancashire West No. 4,700 1,900 50,200 19,800 101,600
% 1.1 0.5 12.5 4.9 24.9
             
East Lancashire No. 800 500 48,800 8,500 46,500
% 0.4 0.2 24.1 4.2 23.0
Blackburn with Darwen 100 * 13,800 1,800 12,300
Burnley * * 7,400 1,200 7,900
Hyndburn * 300 5,600 1,200 8,500
Pendle 100 * 10,500 1,500 6,800
Ribble Valley 400 * 6,200 1,300 5,900
Rossendale 100 * 5,200 1,600 5,200
             
Lancashire County No. 5,300 2,400 81,700 24,800 117,100
% 1.1 0.5 16.7 5.1 23.9
Lancashire NUTS-2 No. 5,500 2,400 99,000 28,300 148,100
% 0.9 0.4 16.2 4.6 24.3
             
North West No. 14,900 10,300 377,100 149,900 720,400
% 0.5 0.3 12.5 5.0 23.9
Great Britain No. 227,300 157,400 2,863,400 1,257,200 6,192,400
% 0.9 0.6 10.9 4.8 23.5
             
  Transport and Communication Finance and Business Services Public Administration, Education and Health Other Services All Employees
             
North Lancashire No. 7,600 24,100 63,200 10,800 194,400
% 3.9 12.4 32.5 5.5 100.0
Blackpool 1,900 6,100 22,600 5,100 59,700
Fylde 800 8,100 8,300 1,600 45,800
Lancaster 3,400 6,200 20,400 2,500 53,700
Wyre 1,500 3,600 12,000 1,600 35,300
             
Central Lancashire No. 12,100 37,300 66,100 8,300 213,300
% 5.7 17.5 31.0 3.9 100.0
Chorley 1,500 10,200 11,000 2,200 41,000
Preston 5,400 15,700 31,700 3,100 84,800
South Ribble 2,500 5,100 10,900 1,500 42,600
West Lancashire 2,800 6,300 12,500 1,500 44,900
             
Lancashire West No. 19,700 61,400 129,300 19,100 407,700
% 4.8 15.1 31.7 4.7 100.0
             
East Lancashire No. 8,300 25,300 53,700 10,200 202,500
% 4.1 12.5 26.5 5.1 100.0
Blackburn with Darwen 3,300 8,600 17,400 4,000 61,300
Burnley 1,600 4,500 9,900 1,900 34,600
Hyndburn 1,000 2,400 7,900 1,200 28,100
Pendle 700 3,400 7,800 1,300 32,000
Ribble Valley 700 2,100 6,500 900 24,100
Rossendale 900 4,100 4,300 1,000 22,500
             
Lancashire County No. 22,800 71,900 143,000 20,200 489,200
% 4.7 14.7 29.2 4.1 100.0
Lancashire NUTS-2 No. 28,000 86,700 183,000 29,300 610,200
% 4.6 14.2 30.0 4.8 100.0
             
North West No. 181,100 578,200 836,700 142,200 3,010,700
% 6.0 19,2 27.8 4.7 100.0
Great Britain No. 1,549,700 5,590,900 7,090,800 1,391,500 26,320,600
% 5.9 21.2 26.9 5.3 100.0
Note * Disclosive data
Source ONS - Annual Business Inquiry 2006

Figure 1 Employee Jobs by Broad Sector of Industry, 2006
Map showing the total number of employee jobs and the distribution among manufacturing, services and other for Lancashire's local authorities
Source ONS - Annual Business Inquiry 2006

For further details, please contact:
Peter Kivell
Tel 01772 534157
Email Peter.Kivell@lancashire.gov.uk