Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to publish data on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the UK’s working population, broken down by gender.

The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority. I have therefore asked the Authority to respond.

Dear Baroness Lister,

As National Statistician and Chief Executive of the UK Statistics Authority, I am responding to your Parliamentary Question asking what plans have been made to publish data on the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the UK’s working population, broken down by gender (HL3269).

Labour market statistics are produced every month and include analysis of the working population by sex. The main source for these statistics is the Labour Force Survey (LFS). The LFS’s latest estimates[1] were published on 21 April 2020 and cover the period prior to the implementation of the coronavirus (COVID-19) social distancing measure (December 2019 to February 2020). The next publication is scheduled for 19 May 2020 and will cover the period from January to March 2020.

In addition to scheduled publications, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has a dedicated page[2] on the COVID-19 pandemic and any additional analysis is published there. We have also included some specific questions relating to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the LFS from April 2020 and launched an online Labour Market Survey from April, as announced in a statement[3] from the ONS. Both these sources will provide information by sex. We aim to publish as much as possible, as data becomes available, to aid understanding of the impact of the pandemic on the working population.

Our Business Impact of Coronavirus (COVID-19) Survey (BICS) asks firms a number of questions about employment, including whether they had laid off staff, their employment expectations, and take-up of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme. Latest survey estimates are available here[4]. Although the data does not enable a breakdown by sex, the sectoral information does show the variation across female-dominated versus male-dominated industries. We have recently published an article on furloughed workers, based on BICS data[5]:

In addition, the weekly Opinions and Lifestyle Survey publishes survey responses by sex[6].

Yours sincerely,

Professor Sir Ian Diamond

[1]https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/bulletins/uklabourmarket/april2020.

[2]https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases

[3]https://www.ons.gov.uk/news/statementsandletters/ensuringthebestpossibleinformationduringcovid19throughsafedatacollection

[4]https://www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/business/businessservices/bulletins/coronavirusandtheeconomicimpactsontheuk/23april2020

[5]https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/articles/furloughingofworkersacrossukbusinesses/23march2020to5april2020

[6]https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/healthandwellbeing/datasets/coronavirusandthesocialimpactsongreatbritaindata