Local Government Candidates Survey 2022

11. Employment status

Candidates were asked to describe their current employment situation apart from or in addition to any work they may currently do as a councillor. These results were then aggregated into three categories following conventions set by the International Labour Organisation^[10], namely ILO employed, unemployed and inactive.

The results in figure 19 below suggest that the majority of respondents (66%) were employed at the time of the survey in some form of work (separate to being a councillor), with 33% inactive (reasons for inactivity include being retired, a student, full-time carers amongst others) and the remainder (approximately 1%) were unemployed, other or unknown.

Compared to the population as a whole, the survey respondents were less likely to be inactive (by 7 percentage points) or unemployed (by 1 percentage point) and more likely to be in employment (8 percentage points) (Figure 20).

Comparing the employment profiles of successfully elected candidates as a group versus those who were not elected suggests that there is not a significant difference, with approximately similar numbers being employed, inactive or unemployed between both groups (Figure 21).