Nearly one in four households in parts of South Wales have no-one working, new figures show.
And more households Wales-wide – 17.2% – have no adult working than the UK average.
The proportion of workless households between April and June of this year was lower than in Northern Ireland (22.7%) and Scotland (17.9%), but higher than the UK average 15.8%.
Of the regions in England and countries of the UK, the North East had the highest percentage of workless households at 22.9%, while the East of England had the lowest at 11.9%, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures have revealed.
Caerphilly has highest rate
Annual figures for the whole of 2014 show 19.4% of households in Wales were workless – the highest rate was in Caerphilly at 23.9% and the lowest in Monmouthshire at 13.2%.
The Caerphilly figure represents a rise from the 19.9% of households where no-one had a job there in 2013.
In 2014 in Scotland the rate was 18.3%, in Northern Ireland 21.4%, in England 15.8% and across the UK as a whole 16.4%.
Assembly Shadow Business Minister William Graham insisted UK Tory Government policies to get people into work are helping Welsh job seekers, but the Welsh Labour Government must play its part too.
The Tory AM for South Wales East said: “Ministers must work with their UK colleagues, boost business support and scrap rates for small businesses, and follow the example of Conservatives in government and freeze council tax.”
UK-wide, the broad picture since 1996 shows a rise in working households and a fall in workless households.
More lone parents working
The ONS say growth in the share of working households in the UK has been partly driven by growing numbers of single parents working.
The share of lone parents who were working has risen from 43.8% in 1996 to 64.4% in 2015.
Workless households contain adults aged 16 and over who are either unemployed or inactive.
For full story see - http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/nearly-one-five-welsh-households-10204589
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