Annual Population Survey: summary of economic activity by disabled status
Next update expected:22 July 2026
Updates
- 22nd April 2026
Quarterly update
- 21st January 2026
Quarterly update
- 16th October 2025
- 9th October 2025
- 26th September 2025
- Dataset first published.
Main information
- Designation
- Accredited official statistics
- Data provider
- Office for National Statistics (ONS)
- Data source
- Annual Population Survey (APS)
Overview
- Summary of dataset and variables
The data in this dataset relates to the economic activity of persons by disabled status. As the question on disability only covers people of working age in the survey, this dataset is restricted to analysis of the working age population. Data for the population aged 16 and over, which are also usually considered when measuring economic activity, are not available.
NOTE From 2010-2020 the female state pension age is changing from 60 to 65. The ONS changed the routing of the disability questions so that from 2010 all persons aged 16-64 were asked those questions, prior to that they were only asked to those aged 16/59(f)/64(m) and to those in employment. Therefore data prior to 2010 is on a working age basis (16-59/64) and data after that is available on both a 16-64 and a working age basis. Comparisons should not be made between the working age data prior to 2010 and the 16-64 data after 2010. For a long run series the working age data should be used.
In April 2013 the Office for National Statistics (ONS)’s Annual Population Survey (APS) adopted a new standardised question on individuals with health problems. This has led to a discontinuity in the series between responses for March 2013 and April 2013. This will lead to the datasets for July 2012 to June 2013, October 2012 to September 2013 and January 2013 to December 2013 containing responses on two different basis over the period of each dataset. Due to this discontinuity, WG has decided to follow ONS' approach to suspend this series until a full year’s data is available on the APS and will launch a new series based on the new questions from the April 2013 to March 2014 APS. These new series will still be discontinuous when compared with the old series but will be internally consistent.
- Data collection or calculation
The local authority and Wales figures for 2001, 2002 and 2003 in these tables may not be the same as published elsewhere, as the numbers here are estimated using Welsh specific weights. These weights better reflect the population estimates for Welsh local authorities in these years.
These data are taken from the ANNUAL datasets from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) carried out by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), providing labour market data by disability status back to 1998 for the NUTS2 areas in Wales, and back to 2001 for the local authorities in Wales. The availability of local authority data is dependent upon on an enhanced sample (around 350 per cent larger) for the annual LFS, which commenced in 2001.
For years labelled 1998 to 2004 in this dataset, the actual periods covered are the 12 months running from March in the year given to February in the following year (e.g. 2001 = 1 March 2001 to 28 February 2002).
Since 2004, the annual data have been produced on a rolling annual basis, updated every three months, and the dataset is now referred to as the Annual Population Survey (APS). The rolling annual averages are on a calendar basis with the first rolling annual average presented here covering the period 1 January 2004 to 31 December 2004, followed by data covering the period 1 April 2004 to 31 March 2005, with rolling quarterly updates applied thereafter.
Note therefore that the consecutive rolling annual averages overlap by nine months, and there is also a two-month overlap between the last period presented on the former March to February basis, and the first period on the new basis.
The data in this dataset relates to the economic activity of persons by disabled status. As the question on disability only covers people of working age in the survey, this dataset is restricted to analysis of the working age population. Data for the population aged 16 and over, which are also usually considered when measuring economic activity, are not available.
Nomis is the ONS's official portal for labour market statistics. Note that some estimates from Nomis for the APS may differ slightly from those presented here due to differences in how local authority geographies are constructed.
- Statistical quality
Annual Population Survey (APS) responses are weighted to official population projections. The projections for 2020 were 2018-based, and, therefore, were based on demographic trends that pre-dated the COVID-19 pandemic. To allow for different trends during the pandemic the responses for the APS have been reweighted on the 9 September 2021 to new populations derived using growth rates from HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) Real Time Information (RTI). The reweighting has been applied from year ending March 2020 data onwards and gives improved estimates of both rates and levels. The changes ONS have made to the weighting should reduce the bias of estimates at high levels of aggregation. Some smaller breakdowns may be impacted negatively and more extreme changes could be seen given the reduced size of the underlying sample since the start of the pandemic. As the data come from a survey, the results are sample-based estimates and therefore subject to differing degrees of sampling variability, i.e. the true value for any measure lies in a differing range about the estimated value. This range or sampling variability increases as the detail in the data increases, for example individual local authority data are subject to higher variability than Wales data.
- Rounding applied
Figures are rounded to the nearest hundred and so there may be some apparent slight discrepancies between the sum of constituent items and the totals as shown.
- Related reports
Published by
- Organisation
- Welsh Government
- Contact email
- labourmarket.stats@gov.wales