Internet Access Continues To Rise

The latest quarterly release about Internet access in the UK suggests that at the first quarter of 2013 86% of the UK population or 43.5m adults, had used the Internet. While the majority of the population have at some time used the Internet there are still some 7.1m adults or 14% of the population who have never used the Internet on the Q4 2012 though the number decreased by 4% or 325,000 people. The demographics of the survey suggest that the elderly and the disabled are less likely to have used the Internet.

Men are more likely to have used the Internet than women with 88% of men being users and 84% of women. Londoners are more likely than any other region to be Internet users with 90% of people in London using the Internet. The region with the lowest percentage of users was Northern Ireland still with 79%.

Disabled people are less likely to use the Internet. According to the definition used in the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) 32% of disabled people or 3.7m disabled people have never used the Internet. This accounts for over 50% of non-users (53%).

The ONS survey covers people aged 16 and over. The number of Internet users continues to increase with an extra 2.4m added since the survey began.

Internet Usage Continues To Spread

The percentage of people using the Internet continues to increase quarter in quarter. the figures from the ONS for Q1 2012 however suggest that 8.12m or 16.1% of adults have still never used the Internet but that is 1% down on Q4 2011 and 7% down on Q1 2011. As many as 42.16m or 83.7% of adults have now used the Internet at some time and that includes 86.1% of men and 81.3% of women. Over 3m non-users are from the over 75 age group (41.2% of non-users). Non-users are also from the disabled and lower income groups. Those most likely to have used the Internet include those earning over £500/week with nearly 99% and those over £1000/week at nearly 100%. The South East is the region with the biggest rate of users at 86.9%, then London with 86.5%. N.Ireland recorded the lowest percentage of Internet use with 75.1%. All regions have nevertheless shown an increase in Internet use over the year from Q1 2011 to Q1 2012.

Employment Position Of Disadvantaged Groups Has Improved

Most of the groups who face barriers to work have increased their position relative to the rest of the workforce over the last 10-15 years according to the Economic and Labour Market Review from the ONS.

The Public Service Agreements 2007 identified six groups as facing barriers in employment: the disabled, lone parents, ethnic minorities, the over 50s, the lowest qualified and those living in the most deprived local authority wards. The gap closed most was for lone parents who were only 17 percentage points behind the rest of the population in 2009 compared with 30 points in 1997. The disabled gap has closed to 31 percentage points in 2009 from 41 in 1998. Those in deprived areas saw little change between 2003 and 2009.

The only group for whom the gap widened was those with the lowest qualifications increasing from 17 to 22 percentge points between 1995 and 2009. The workforce has become better qualified since then and fewer peole are in that category now.

The report also suggests that those who are in more than one disadvantaged group are less likely to be employed. The employment rate for those who are not in any disadvantaged group was 82%, for those in one disadvantaged group it was 75%, in two groups 62% and for those in five or six disadvantaged groups the employment rate went down to 15%. People are also more likely to become economically inactive rather than unemployed the more disadvantaged groups they are in. The proportion of the population that were unemployed did not change much according to the number of disadvantaged groups a person was in, 5.1% to 8.2% for those in five or six groups, but the economically inactive increased from 12% to 77% for those in five or six groups.