The South Yorkshire Combined Authority has the fifth largest population of the nine English Combined Authorities at 1.37 million (ONS, 2022). It brings together four local authorities: Barnsley, Sheffield, Doncaster, and Rotherham.

It has an employment rate of 73.3% is two percentage points below the national average 80.1% and its unemployment rate (4.7%) is higher than the English average (3.7%) [ONS, 2023]. Economic inactivity is higher in South Yorkshire (23%) than the rest of England (21.4%) [ONS, 2023]. Workers in the region earn a weekly wage of £547 which is £83 lower than the English average wage (Centre for Cities, 2023).

Over one in five workers in South Yorkshire are in severely insecure work (21.7%), which is two percentage points above the national average of 19.8%. The Combined Authority has the second highest levels of severely insecure work out of the nine English Combined Authorities.

The South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority has higher than average incidences of solo self-employed workers, involuntary temporary workers, and workers with less than two years’ service in a role.

Across the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority, there is variation amongst the four local authorities. Barnsley is the hotspot in the city region for severely insecure work at 24.9%, which is over five percentage points higher than the national average. In Rotherham, 18.6% of workers are in severely insecure work, which is below the national average.

Analysis shows that women, workers from ethnic minority backgrounds, disabled workers, and workers between the ages of 16 and 24 are most likely to be in severely insecure work in South Yorkshire.

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Source: Work Foundation calculations of the Office for National Statistics Labour Force Survey; 2021- 2022.

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