MORE people in the South West live in working households than in any other part of the UK, figures show.

The figures from the ONS reveal from January to March, the latest time for which data is available, only 7.9 per cent of people were living in households where no-one works, down from 12.9 per cent in 1996.

Meanwhile, over the same period, 60.6 per cent of people were living in households where everyone between 16 and retirement age had jobs – the highest in the country.

People living in households where some of the adults worked accounted for the rest of population at 31.5 per cent.

The figures once again show how buoyant the labour market is in the South West, after it was announced earlier this month the region had the highest employment rate in the country, with 79.3 per cent of people in work.

Although the figure for people living in households where no-one works is good – at 7.9 per cent – in the first months of 2017 the news was even better – when the figure hit 7.7 per cent. This rose slightly slightly over the rest of the year before dropping back down.

Matt Griffith, director of policy at not-for-profit business champion Business West, said: “This is a really impressive jobs performance for the South West – where we are now England’s leading region for working households. In the past ten years, no other region has ever achieved this level of employment – even beating the South East and London – so it is something for us to be proud of.

“Given the head winds of Brexit and wider political uncertainty, this is testimony to the hard work of our employers, entrepreneurs and businesses.

“The challenge for the region is to match this impressive jobs performance with greater levels of productivity and wage growth – so that people feel a sustained benefit in their pocket. Recently falling inflation and rising wages should help here over the coming year, but the South West needs to do more on tackling high housing costs and under investment over the longer term.”

Across the UK 54.9 per cent of people live in households where everyone works, with 35.1 living in mixed and 10 per cent in work-less households.

In the North East 13.4 per cent of people live in households where no-one works – the highest level in the country. However, this is actually a vast improvement on its scores in 1999, when the figure reached 19 per cent.