UK employment statistics: choose the right denominator and period
Choose ONS employment, unemployment and inactivity measures without mixing age groups, geography or release periods.
Choose the measure first
The ONS headline employment rate uses employed people aged 16–64 divided by the population of that age group. The headline unemployment rate uses unemployed people aged 16 and over divided by the economically active population aged 16 and over. These are different denominators; employment and unemployment rates do not sum to 100.
Find the table
Start at the ONS A02 SA dataset linked below for seasonally adjusted employment, unemployment and inactivity levels and rates. Select the release edition, then check the worksheet headings and notes. Keep the publication date separate from the period represented by the estimate. The dataset page offers editions; a current landing page is not an immutable copy of a past download.
An arithmetic check
Synthetic illustration: in an age-consistent population of 100, 70 employed, 5 unemployed and 25 inactive imply 70% employed and 5 / 75 = 6.67% unemployed among active people. This illustrates denominator choice only; it is not an ONS headline estimate, whose age groups differ.
Before comparing tables
Record geography exactly as printed, age range, seasonal adjustment, period, unit and release edition. UK, Great Britain and a local region are not interchangeable. People and jobs are different counts. A disagreement can be a definition or revision difference; preserve both series until you identify it.
Contribute a correction
Give the exact dataset edition and worksheet, the two measure labels, and which comparison is valid. A short mapping of denominators is more useful than a copied headline number. If the source warns about quality or comparability, carry that warning into the answer.
Official sources
Improve this guide
Found an error or used a different dataset? Include the source, edition/date, what needs changing and why. Do not include credentials or personal records.
Propose a correction · Read open corrections · Open wiki topic