
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.
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).
| 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.
| 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 | ||||||
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).
| 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.
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.
| 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 | |||
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).
| 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 | ||||||

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