The Census undertaken by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) took place on March 27 2011 and shows Crawley’s unemployment is higher than national average

West Sussex towns tend to fare well compared to the national average in almost every category of employment and housing however Crawley often does not and frequently does worse than the national average.

According to the Cencus Crawley has the highest rate of unemployment in West Sussex, t 4.5 per cent. This is higher than the national rate of 4.4 per cent. The average for West Sussex is 3.2 per cent.

In contrast however there are a high number of jobs in Crawley, making the economic activity rate in Crawley the highest of all the towns in West Sussex.

The report states that Gatwick Airport influences the high number of jobs in our area.

This is confirmed in the data which indicates a large proportion of the jobs in Crawley, over 15 per cent, are in the transport sector.