Hiding in plain sight? Why economically inactive people aren’t in ‘hidden unemployment’

Categories: Economy, ONS

You’re either classed as employed or unemployed, right? Well, wrong, actually – there are three different possible ways people can be classified in the labour market. Here David Freeman looks at the third status, called ‘economic inactivity’ and explains how ONS statistics fully capture people’s involvement, or lack of it, with the world of work and why economically inactive people aren’t just in ‘hidden unemployment’.

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People power: how we estimate the economic value of UK citizens

Categories: ONS

The latest ONS estimate values the ‘human capital’ of the United Kingdom at £21.4 trillion.  It’s a staggering figure but what does it mean? Put simply, human capital  is the economic value of the skills, knowledge and experience of the UK workforce.  Richard Tonkin explains how the figures are put together and how the ONS plans to take a far broader view of human capital in the future.

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Understanding highest educational qualification: The case for using Administrative Data

Categories: Data, Office for National Statistics

Asking people in a survey to recall their education can be problematic, especially where that recall can go back decades. Could using data sources already held by government departments help improve the quality of our statistics on educational attainment? At the ONS we are uniquely placed to be able to harness the potential of these data sources and a key example is some of the work we’ve been able to do through accessing administrative data from the Department for Education.  Here, Brogan Taylor explains how the new work is taking the ONS a step closer towards being able to analyse education qualifications more frequently than in the census.

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