Updated 20 December 2012

Gap between the employment rates for disabled people and the overall population

Indicator description

This indicator compares the employment rate of disabled people, relative to the employment rate of the total working age population. This indicator is measured by comparing the seasonally unadjusted employment rate for disabled people as defined in the Equality Act 2010 with the Great Britain unadjusted working age employment rate, both taken from the Labour Force Survey published quarterly by the Office for National Statistics. The 95% confidence interval is ±1.4 percentage points. Data are not seasonally adjusted and therefore year on year comparisons only are meaningful. A statistically significant decrease in the employment rate gap would demonstrate an improvement in equality of opportunity for disabled people.

• Technical description of the gap between the employment rates for disabled people and the overall population

Latest data – published 14 November 2012

Data for July to September 2012 showed a gap of 24.8 per cent, an increase of 0.4 percentage points from July to September 2011 when the gap was 24.4 per cent. This slight increase goes against the recent downwards trend (which would normally represent an improvement for this indicator), but this does not represent a statistically significant change. The 95 per cent confidence interval is ±1.4 percentage points.

Gap in data – Estimates for 2010 onwards should not be compared directly with earlier years, due to a change in reporting behaviour (see Technical Description, Robustness and data limitations section)

• CSV file – Gap between the employment rates for disabled people and the overall population (1KB) CSV

Further details on comparing the life chances of disabled people to non-disabled people are available on the Office for Disabilities website.