Louise Haines of Creditplus examines if the prospect for work and earnings is tied to our commute.
A recent study was undertaken into the distances consumers travel to work and whether the area they lived in had a vital part to play.Factors such as unemployment levels and the price of housing were taken into consideration when reporting on the findings. The data collected allowed us to see that people living in the Northern part of the UK generally have further to commute to work than those who live in the South.
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The average commuting distance in the South for a single journey from home to work was 21.57 miles, compared to 22.03 miles for the North. (See Figure 1.)
Could the reason behind why travelling distances for the North are higher than the South be as a result of there being almost 50 unemployment black spots across the country with all but four of these
struggling towns and cities being in Northern England, Scotland and Wales? (According to the Daily Mirror, 2013.)
A recent study conducted by This is Money looked at the best and worst cities to find a job in the UK. Its research revealed employment levels in northern parts of the UK are significantly lower than in the South. We then used this data in conjunction with our own to help identify any positive or negative correlation between the best and worst cities to find work and the distances people have to travel to work.
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By GlobalDataAberdeen was the only city from the North that made it into the top 10 best cities to find work, gaining an impressive first place with under 1 jobseeker (0.40) applying for each job vacancy in comparison to Hull which has a massive 51.72 people applying for each vacancy (This is Money, 2013). No wonder Hull was voted the worst city to find a job in. When we took the average miles travelled for people living in Hull and compared them to other parts of the North, it was evident those outside Hull, on the whole, shared a shorter commuting distance, as shown in this table:
| Counties | Avg Miles Travelled (single journey) | Avg Miles Travelled (round trip) |
|---|---|---|
| Aberdeenshire | 13.73 | 27.46 |
| Lanarkshire | 18.42 | 36.84 |
| Lancashire | 23.36 | 46.72 |
| West Midlands | 34.92 | 69.84 |
| Yorkshire (all) | 28.29 | 59.58 |
The West Midlands on the other hand showed an average single commuting distance of 34.92 miles to work and an all-round distance of 69.84 miles – a long way. However, when we took a detailed
look into the social indicators of the West Midlands this was hardly surprising.
Unemployment rates in certain parts of Birmingham were greater than 10%, The south-east of Wolverhampton has unemployment levels between 8 and 9.9%, while Walsall and Wolverhampton
unemployment rates are anywhere between 6 and 7.9% (BBC, 2013). Could this be due to 14% of the region’s population having no qualifications compared with 10.7% for the UK as a whole? (ONS, 2012.)
With the above average amount of unqualified people in this region it doesn’t come as a shock to see unemployment levels at a high. Jobs are becoming harder and harder to come by and even the simplest of jobs requiring the most basic of skills are being snapped up by individuals who are over-qualified but desperately looking for a job.
Latest findings from the BBC state there is a major shift in the job market towards requiring many more skilled workers. The fall in jobs not requiring qualifications has accelerated since 2006 and the BBC’s latest survey places it at a "historic low" of 23% of the labour market, compared with 26% for graduate jobs.
The total population of the West Midlands region was 5.6 million in mid-2011, 11% of the population of England. With the population density so high and the sheer amount of people out of work, the competition to find a job is going to be fierce. Customers will be forced to commute further to find work in order to finance themselves and their families.
Also mentioned into the top 10 best cities to find work was Reading, Oxford, Milton Keynes and Slough – all located in the South East.
Taking this into account we decided to call upon our own data to see if we could identify any positive trends between the best towns and cities to find work and the distances people had to commute.
Figure 2 is a map outling each of the four counties and their average commuting distance to work.
The unemployment rate in the South-East stood at 6.1% in the fourth quarter of 2010, lower than the UK rate of 7.9%.
Could this be the reason why commuting distances are not as high as other regions?
These counties are also perceived as affluent areas to live, with the average house across the four counties costing a whooping £431,628.
The South-East is home to some of the wealthiest households in the UK, attracting highly educated professional individuals and families turning over a good yearly salary. In April 2010, the median gross
weekly earnings for full-time employees on adult rates who were resident in the South-East was £548, higher than the UK median of £499 (ONS, 2009).
With the professionalism and skill sets that these types of individuals are likely to hold, and the types of specialised jobs that become available in the surrounding areas of London it’s likely that a large majority of these individuals will fit these jobs descriptions therefore will not incur long commuting distances to work.
Of course, if you find this data interesting and would like to obtain a full data set for each of the different counties please feel free to contact us.
Louise Haines is digital marketing exectutive at Creditplus
