Labour talks of having the ‘bold ambition of an 80 per cent employment rate’. But who should they target to get there? The government published its white paper this week on ‘getting Britain working’ and tackling the growing health and disability benefits bill, which is forecast to hit £120 billion.
Figures slipped out by the Office for National Statistics today give more insight on which groups could perhaps be better targeted. These figures split out employment rates by parental status, and show that already more than 80 per cent of married (or cohabiting) mothers and 93 per cent of married (or cohabiting) fathers with dependent children are working. This doesn’t leave a huge amount of room for boosting the employment rate in a huge section of the population.
The groups below the 80 per cent target include men and women without kids that depend on them (72 per cent and 70 per cent). But the lowest employment rate is among the single parent group, which sits at just 66 per cent. So perhaps it’s this group that Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall should be targeting. But, as the below graph shows, there has already been huge improvement in this group over the last three decades so any further gains would be very hard won.
To hit their 80 per cent target, Labour must get another 1.8 million people employed. There are more than 600,000 single parents not in work: that might be the place to start.
Comments