The Liverpool City Region has the fourth largest population of the nine English Combined Authorities at 1,551,700 (ONS, 2022). It brings together six local authorities: Halton, Knowsley, Liverpool, Sefton, St Helens, and Wirral.

It has an employment rate of 73.7% and its unemployment rate (3.1%) is lower than the English average (3.7%) [ONS, 2023]. Economic inactivity is higher in the Liverpool City Region (24%) than the rest of England (21.4%) [ONS, 2023]. Workers in the region earn a weekly wage of £571 which is £59 below the English average wage (Centre for Cities, 2023).

Nearly one in five workers (18.8%) in the Liverpool City Region are in severely insecure work, which is just below the national average of 19.8%. This Combined Authority has the lowest level of insecure work out of the nine English Combined Authorities.

Despite a lower incidence of severely insecure work relative to England, the Liverpool City Region has higher than average incidences of second jobs, low paid jobs, and temporary work.

Across the Liverpool City Region, there is some variation in the incidence of severely insecure work amongst the six local authorities. Wirral is the hotspot in the city region with 20.9% of its workers in severely insecure work. Halton is five percentage points below the national average for workers in severely insecure work and is nine points above the average for those in secure employment.

Analysis shows that women, workers from ethnic minority backgrounds, disabled workers, and younger workers are more likely than other workers to be in severely insecure work in the Liverpool City Region.

Source: Work Foundation calculations of the Office for National Statistics Labour Force Survey; 2021- 2022.

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