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Economic activity rate

Proportion of working age population that are active in labour market

Labour Market Newcastle North Tyneside South Tyneside Durham Gateshead Sunderland Northumberland
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The latest North East economic activity rate

Economic activity measures whether a person is an active participant in the labour market. Economically active people include all those in any type of employment and other people who are actively seeking a job. The latter are classified as uenmployed. Anyone in neither of these categories is classified as economically inactive. The headline economic activity rate is expressed as a percentage of people aged 16 to 64, a proxy for the working age population.

The latest rate is based on survey data from throughout the 2023 calendar year. In that period, in the North East, among those aged 16 to 64:

  • Just under 76% were economically inactive
  • this was higher than in 2021 and 2022 but lower than in 2020 
  • the rate was lower than that of England excluding London but the gap had narrowed in the latest two years
  • the North East rate was the fourth lowest among the eight core city areas
  • at local authority level, Gateshead had the highest rate, with South Tyneside having the lowest
  • at constituency level, the highest North East rate was in Blyth Valley in Northumberland.

Economic activity by age and sex

In the North East in 2023:

  • The male economic activity rate was 6.5 percentage points (pp) higher than the female rate
  • this gap was larger than in 2022 but narrower than in every other year in the time series back to 2004 
  • the female and male rates were both highest among those aged 35 to 49
  • the male rate was lowest among 16 to 24 year-olds but the female rate was lowest for the 50 to 64 age group
  • the North East 16 to 24 rates were both higher than the England excluding London equivalents but all female and male rates for older age groups were lower in the North East
  • in the latest year, there were large increases in North East economic activity among males aged 35 to 49 and among both males and females aged 16 to 24
  • the largest decreases were among males aged 25 to 34 and females aged 50 to 64.