§ 110. Mr. Haleasked the Minister of Labour whether he will arrange to take a count of unemployment in the Oldham employment area on a Thursday or a Friday so as to obtain more accurate figures of present unemployment than can be obtained by a Monday count.
§ Mr. Iain MacleodI regret that it is not possible to adopt the hon. Member's suggestion. The unemployment figures are designed to show the numbers registered as unemployed on a specified day, and for this purpose it is necessary to make the count on the same day at all Employment Exchanges. A recent analysis showed that, for the country as a whole, a count on Monday produced a total which was closer to the average for the week than for any other day and it would therefore be wrong to depart from the long-standing practice of taking the count on a Monday.