North-south divide deepens for families out of work

New figures on the numbers of workless UK households show the disparity between the north and south of the country is growing.

The ten areas in the UK that have the highest concentration of households where no adults are in work all lie north of a line between the Severn and the Wash, the Office of National Statistics (ONS) reports.

By contrast, the ten areas with the lowest concentration of workless homes were all in the south of the country.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

In Liverpool, which remains the area with the biggest unemployment problem, more than a quarter of households have no adult in work. That figure drops to 7.3 per cent in Windsor, Berkshire.

The north-east of England, south Wales and parts of Scotland "are also among the most deprived areas of the UK on this measure", says the BBC.

However, while the divide between north and south appears to be growing, the total number of workless households has fallen in line with lower unemployment.

Even despite predictions unemployment might fall in the wake of the vote for Brexit, the number of people out of work fell in the three months up to and including July. The headline rate is now below five per cent.