Lone parents benefitting from rising employment

The ONS has drilled down into the latest unemployment data and highlighted the fact lone parents have benefited from rising employment and the number of households where no-one works has also fallen. Both facts are good - not only do they have the potential to reduce inequality but in the longer-term it will also help maintain the economy's stock of human capital. The story is reported here by BBC business.

The ONS has also published fresh data on the number of workless households in the UK - i.e. households where no one of working age is in paid part-time or full-time jobs.

There were 3.1 million households (14.9%) classed as workless, down 189,000 or 0.9 percentage points over the last year. The good news is that there are fewer children living in workless households - the absence of regular paid work is a key factor explaining deep persistent poverty.

Of the 20.7 million households (where at least one member is aged 16 to 64) in the UK, 11.8 million of those households (57.0%) were classed as working. This is up 186,000, or 1.1 percentage points, over the past year.