§ 7. Mr. Ralph Howellasked the Secretary of State for Employment what is his latest estimate of the actual number of job vacancies in the United Kingdom.
§ Mr. John FraserAt 5th June 1974 my Department knew of 340,173 job vacancies notified to employment offices in the United Kingdom and 113,765 job vacancies which had been notified to careers offices. I have no reliable information on the number of vacancies outstanding which had not been notified.
§ Mr. HowellIs the hon. Gentleman aware that the figures which he has just given are totally inaccurate and unreliable since they do not indicate the number of job vacancies that exist in the United Kingdom? His Department knows only of between 20 and 25 per cent. of vacancies whereas there are at present between 1½ million and 2 million vacancies, with probably 100,000 or fewer people looking for jobs. Is not this one of the main causes of the economic predicament in which we find ourselves? Will the hon. Gentleman take measures to save the taxpayer's money in printing figures which are not only useless but also dangerous?
§ Mr. FraserI find that an extraordinary contribution. The figures which I gave are figures of vacancies notified to the Department. Obviously I cannot give the hon. Gentleman the figures for vacancies which are not notified to the Department. However, we recently carried out a study of 34 companies. It showed that 32 per cent. of vacancies had been notified to the Department. But that is too small a segment to give an overall picture. There are vacancies outside those notified to employment offices.
The number of people seeking work is very much higher than the 100,000 figure referred to by the hon. Gentleman. Some people find jobs without going through the employment offices. But the hon. Gentleman's conclusions are quite extraordinary.
§ Mr. PriorWould not it be in the national interest to have a proper review of the unemployment figures and their accuracy? Is not that a matter which we could take out of the realm of party politics and on which a proper review could be done which might give a very different picture of the total number of people unemployed?
§ Mr. FraserI take note of what the right hon. Gentleman says. Other countries have tried. I give one example. Canada recently conducted a survey to measure the total of outstanding vacancies and also to look at unemployment apart from those registered. It was an expensive operation both in money and in employers' time. It is not considered that such a survey to get more accurate figures than the ones I have given would be justified.