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Liverpool has highest number of homes in Britain with no wage-earners: ONS

Xinhua, September 28, 2016 Adjust font size:

Liverpool, currently hosting the annual Labour Party conference, has more homes where nobody has a job than any other town or city in Britain, figures revealed Tuesday.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said Liverpool, followed by Middlesborough, topped the list for 2015 with the highest percentage of workless households.

At the other end of the table, 37 of the top 50 places with the lowest numbers of workless homes were in the wealthier south of England.

ONS figures show that across Britain 3.2 million homes have no working people, representing 15.5 percent of households.

The total number of workless households across the country has been falling, in line with lower unemployment.

"The fact that the number of workless households has continued to fall shows that we're making real progress," said employment minister Damian Hinds.

Windsor and Maidenhead was the area with the lowest concentration of workless households, with just 7.3 of homes there having no adult in work.

"In 2015, the areas with the highest percentage of workless households were generally located outside of the south of England," the ONS reported.

"However, not all locations outside of the south of England had high percentages of workless households: 13 of the 50 areas with the lowest in 2015 were in Scotland, Wales, the Midlands and the north of England," said the ONS.

In Liverpool the percentage rate is 28.8 percent of city homes where nobody works, while in London less than 10 percent of homes were classed as workless households due to early retirement.

The ONS said both Liverpool and Glasgow were among the top 10 in every year from 2006 to 2015 for their high numbers of workless households.

A spokesman for the ONS said: "In 2015, as with every period covered since 2006, the most common reason for worklessness in the UK was sickness or disability."

The top 10 places where no one works in households is: Liverpool 28.8 percent of households, Middlesbrough 23.9 percent, Glasgow 25.4 percent, Hartlepool 27.4 percent, Blaenau Gwent 23.6 percent, Wolverhampton 24.4 percent, North Ayrshire 27 percent, West Dunbartonshire 25.1 percent, Manchester 22.7 percent and Nottingham 22.4 percent. Endit