THE number of Islanders working in the care and leisure sector has grown by more than a third since 2011, newly released figures have shown.
The data was included within the latest wave of results bulletins from the 2021 census published by Statistics Jersey, which focused on employment, education and transport.
Overall economic activity rates were similar to 2011, with 84% of the population between the ages of 16 and 64 being recorded as ‘economically active’ – meaning they were employed, self-employed or looking for work in the week before the day of the census.
Jersey’s unemployment rate was 3.5%, corresponding to 2,058 people. This was lower than the relevant figure for the UK of 4.6% and also an improvement from the 4.7% recorded in 2011.
‘Caring, leisure and other services’ was marked as one of the occupation categories with the biggest increases in workers, having grown by around a third (36%) over the decade.
Chief statistician Ian Cope said: ‘That’s in line with, I think, an ageing population and greater need for care home staff and people caring in people’s homes. We are seeing those kinds of patterns in developed countries around the world [with] ageing populations and therefore a greater need for various types of care services.’
He also noted that there had been a 43% decrease in agricultural employees.
‘I think we need to be careful with that [figure], as some of that might well be a temporary impact of the pandemic, because at the time of the census we had travel restrictions under which people had to isolate for ten days when they came into Jersey – which may have inhibited seasonal agricultural workers from coming into Jersey in the numbers that they normally would have done,’ he said.
More than a quarter (28%) of adults aged 16 to 64 had a qualification at or above degree level, compared to 20% in 2011, while more than four-fifths (83%) of unemployed adults of the same age range held some form of qualification.
The average number of cars and/or vans per household was 1.53, remaining at a similar level to 2011 (1.50).
Although Mr Cope acknowledged that the pandemic was likely to have influenced some areas of the census, he said: ‘When you look across all of the data we have produced I think the results are very reliable.’
