ONS Publish Labour Market Trends May 2006

Labour Market Trends, May 2006, was published today.  This month's edition contains a number of interesting articles, covering:

• Age-related Employment Practices - Results of research carried out by the National Institute for Economic and Social Research on behalf of the DTI and DWP.  The research found that those most likely to suffer discrimination in employment were young people and older people. It also found that age played a direct role in a wide range of policies and practices, and that some employers’ policies and practices may potentially be in breach of the new regulations. The research found that while 72 per cent of establishments had an equal opportunities policy, only 56 per cent had one which addressed age and just 19 per cent provided equal opportunities training covering age.
• Maternity and Paternity Leave - A new survey from the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) shows that mothers took longer periods of maternity leave in 2005 compared with 2002. This appeared to be a direct consequence of longer periods of Statutory Maternity Pay and longer maternity leave entitlements. Most mothers took around six months’ leave in 2005 compared with four months in 2002.  The survey interviewed a representative sample of 2,504 mothers 17 months after the birth of their child.
• Working Mothers: Contrasting European Experiences - Across Western Europe, just 25 per cent of mothers return to work before their child is a year old. However, as the child gets older, there are different experiences across countries. In the UK, 50 per cent of mothers are already working by the time their child is two years old, but in Ireland this does not happen until the child is three, and in Italy not until the child is four. These are among the findings of new research by the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER). The study uses the European Household Panel Survey, which has followed samples of households in different European Union countries over eight years.
• "Employment Penalties" in the UK Labour Market - Women, ethnic minorities, disabled people and older people are all at a disadvantage in the UK labour market in terms of their likelihood of having a job. But according to new research from the Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER), carried out on behalf of DWP, almost all forms of ‘disadvantage’ have been in decline over the past 10 years. The study, which was commissioned as a DWP contribution to the Equalities Review’s work programme, measured ‘employment penalties’; the extent to which women are less likely to have a job than men, ethnic minorities less likely than white people and so on, after taking account of factors like education and local labour markets. The research found that employment penalties for women, and especially for mothers, have been falling rapidly, even though they still have lower employment rates than men. More detailed analysis showed others are much less likely to have a job than men or childless women. Single women were found not to be disadvantaged when compared with single men.

There is also a comparison of statistics on jobs, which compares statistics on jobs from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) with equivalent estimates from the Workforce Jobs (WFJ) series. It is one of a series of articles designed to enhance users’ understanding of employment and jobs statistics, and to monitor the effects of statistical developments designed to improve coherence between sources.