Employment and the workforce

From this section you can access information on the Kent workforce and employment patterns of Kent residents.

The profile of Kent's resident labour force

The Annual Population Survey is a national sample survey that is published quarterly and presents data covering a 12-month period.  The survey includes a range of indicators such as the level of economic activity, self-employment, occupational and industrial structure, and qualifications of Kent's resident labour force and are presented in the Kent Labour Force profile - April 2012 (PDF, 489k)

The impact of public sector job cuts on the Kent economy

The coalition government is focusing on reducing the fiscal deficit which will inevitably mean job losses in the public sector.  Kent County Council has undertaken a piece of research called Public Sector Dependency 2011 (PDF, 200k), which looks at the current level of dependency on the public sector in each Kent authority and estimates which of the authorities will potentially be hit the hardest by cuts in public spending. 

Counts of employees by industrial sector

Counts of total employees and employees by broad industrial sector are published annually by the Business Register and Employment Survey (BRES).  The BRES replaced the Annual Business Inquiry (ABI) in 2008.  Due to the change in the survey and the change in the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) the two data sets are not directly comparible.

The impact of the new survey and how it will affect future monitoring of employee numbers in Kent is examined in The BRES 2008-2010 (PDF, 289k) bulletin.

Information from the ABI provides a longer historic time series up to 2008 which is presented in the Annual Business Inquiry (ABI) bulletin (PDF, 110k). 

The knowledge economy has been identified as a key sector to drive future economic growth.  We have now redefined this sector based on the new Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) 2007. The bulletin, Redefining the knowledge economy (PDF, 385k), sets out how important the knowledge economy is in Kent, and how this sector has perfromed during the recession. 

Travel to work patterns of Kent residents

Information on where Kent residents who are in employment live and where they work is presented in the Travel to work patterns in Kent report (PDF, 249k).  This report also looks at the distance travelled by occupation, industry and mode of transport.  This report is based on data from the 2001 Census.

The county council has undertaken a piece of work to provide a more up to date picture of the travel to work patterns of Kent residents in 2010 and the results can be viewed in the bulletin Updating the 2001 Journey to Work Matrix (PDF, 145k).  The update looks at total employees only.

How many graduates do we have in Kent?

The number of Kent residents who go into higher education and the number of people who come to Kent to study in higher education is examined in the Graduates in Kent bulletin (PDF, 569k). This report also looks at the origin and destination of these graduates and looks at how many of them enter into employment in Kent answering the question 'Does Kent retain its graduates?'.

How many migrant workers are there in Kent?

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) publishes data on the number of overseas nationals who apply for a national insurance number. They could apply for a national insurance number to either work or claim benefit but we have used the data to indicate the number of migrant workers in Kent districts in the absence of any other data. The latest numbers and a time series of migrant workers in Kent, including details on the countries they have come from, can be found in the Migrant Workers in Kent bulletin (PDF, 578k).