§ Mr. Ashleyasked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will give the latest figures for the numbers of school leavers unemployed for Great Britain and each of the regions; and if he will list the regions in rank order according to the percentage increase in the number of teenagers unemployed in the past year.
§ Mr. John Fraser, pursuant to his reply [Official Report, 11th December 1975; Vol. 902, c. 355], gave the following information:
The following table shows the figures available. Owing to industrial action at local offices of the Employment Service Agency full details of unemployed school leavers are not available from October 1974 to January 1975. The regions have, therefore, been ranked according to the percentage increase in the numbers of unemployed school leavers since February 1975. The regions are listed in order beginning with the one
600W1971 and earlier dates the mid-year figures were based on counts of national insurance cards. They are subject to sampling and other errors and provide only an approximate indication of changes from one year to another. There were no separate figures for Kirkby, which was included with Liverpool. From 1971 figures are from the annual censuses of employment. Following is the information available for Merseyside.
Change in the estimated number of employees in employment in the Merseyside Special Development area: June 1964 to June 1974 (thousands) All manufacturing industries - 23 Construction - 8 Other production industries including Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing - 9 Service industries* - 31 * Based on provisional June 1974 estimates The groupings of industries are based on the Standard Industrial Classification. The headings comprising each group are shown below:
with the largest percentage increase at the top of the list. For Scotland, where there was a slight decrease the pattern of school leaving differs from that in the remainder of Great Britain, and hence the chances there during this period are not comparable with those in other areas.
Number of Unemployed School Leavers aged under 18, at November 1975 West Midlands 5,101 Yorkshire and Humberside 3,670 East Midlands 1,700 East Anglia 691 South-West 3,037 South-East 6,706 North 4,628 North-West 7,535 Wales 3,665 Scotland 3,669 Great Britain 40,402