§ Mr. Knoxasked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will publish in the Official Report a table showing, for each member country of the OECD, the number of individuals unemployed and the percentage of the working population unemployed for each year since 1945.
§ Mr. John Fraser,pursuant to his reply [Official Report, 27th March 1975, Vol. 889, c. 287], gave the following information:
Because of the extensive work involved in furnishing this information it has been restricted to the latest 10 years. Earlier data can be obtained from Year Books of the International Labour Office 1949–50, 1956, 1957, 1959 and 1964. The table appended gives the information up to 1974. Where a space is blank, information is not available. It is regretted that for several of the countries the percentage of the working population unemployed is not available from international sources.
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UNEMPLOYMENT IN THE MEMBER STATES OF THE OECD Annual averages 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 Canada … … … 280,000 267,000 315,000 382,000 382,000 495,000 552,000 562,000 520,000 525,000 3.9% 3.6% 4.1% 4.8% 4.7% 5.9% 6.4% 6.3% 5.6% 5.5% United States of America … … … 3,366,000 2,875,000 2,975,000 2,817,000 2,831,000 4,088,000 4,993,000 4,840,000 4,304,000 5,076,000 4.5% 3.8% 3.8% 3.6% 3.5% 4.9% 5.9% 5.6% 4.9% 5.6% Japan … … … 390,000 440,000 630,000║ 590,000 570,000 590,000 64,000 730,000 670,000 726,000 0.8% 0.9% 1.3% 1.2% 1.1% 1.2% 1.2% 1.4% 1.3% 1.4% Australia … … … 60,700 71,500 79,100 77,800 80,000 74,000 87,600 125,900 107,700 122,000 1.3% 1.5% 1.6% 1.5% 1.5% 1.4% 1.6% 2.3% 1.9% 2.2% New Zealand … … … 510 460 3,850 6,880 2,930 1,600 3,110 5,680 2,320 — Austria … … … 65,500 61,400 64,600 70,800 67,100 58,400 52,000 49,100 41,300 41,000 2.7% 2.5% 2.7% 2.9% 2.8% 2.4% 2.1% 1.9% 1.6% 1.5% Belgium … … … 55,400 61,500 85,300 102,700 85,300 71,300 70,900 86,800 91,700 105,000 2.4% 2.7% 3.7% 4.5% 3.6% 2.9% 2.9% 3.4% 3.6% 2.8% (males) 6.9% (females) Denmark … … … 16,100 18,300 21,800 38,700 31,200 23,900 30,000 29,900 20,100 44,800 2.0% 2.3% 2.7% 5.0% 3.9% 2.9% 3.7% 3.6% 2.4% 5.3% Finland … … … 31,000 35,000 63,000 88,000 62,000 41,000║ 49,000 55,000 51,000 39,000 1.4% 1.6% 2.9% 4.0% 2.8% 1.9% 2.3% 2.5% 2.3% 1.8% France … … … 142,100 147,700 196,000 253,800 223,000 262,100 338,200 383,500† 393,900 408,000 Germany … … … 147,400 161,100 459,500 323,500 178,600 148,800 185,100 246,400 273,500 583,000 0.6% 0.7% 2.1% 1.5% 0.9% 0.7% 0.8% 1.1% 1.2% 2.6% Greece* … … … 64,300 64,800 83,500 73,700 66,500 48,700 30,300 23,800 21,400 — Iceland … … … — — — — 1,950 1,100 570 460 370 — 2.5% 1.3% 0.7% 0.5% 0.4% Ireland‡ … … … 28,600 31,800║ 36,200 37,300 36,100 41,600 42,400 48,200 44,100 48,100 5.6% 6.1% 6.7% 6.7% 6.4% 7.2% 7.2% 8.1% 7.2% — Italy … … … 714,000 759,000 679,000 684,000 655,000 609,000 609,000 697,000 668,000 560,000 3.6% 3.9% 3.5% 3.5% 3.4% 3.2% 3.2% 3.7% 3.5% 2.9% Luxembourg§ … … … 50 20 170 90 40 40 20 40 50 — Netherlands … … … 26,700 37,300 78,500 71,900¶ 52,900 46,400 62,000 107,900 109,900 136,000 0.7% 1.0% 2.0% 1.9% 1.4% 1.1% 1.6% 2.7% 2.7% — Norway … … … 13,400 11,900 11,400 16,500 15,600 12,500 12,200 14,800 12,800 10,700 0.9% 0.8% 0.8% 1.1% 1.0% 0.8% 0.8% 1.0% 0.8% 0.7% Portugal … … … — — — — — — — — — — Spain … … … 147,100 123,200 146,300 182,000 158,900 145,600 190,300 190,900 149,600 150,000 — — — 1.5% 1.3% 1.1% 1.5% 1.5% 1.1% — Sweden … … … 16,600 22,200 28,800 33,400 29,900 29,500 45,300 48,200 46,000 39,000 1.1% 1.4% 1.7% 2.0% 1.7% 1.4% 2.0% 2.0% 1.9% —
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Annual averages 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 Switzerland§ … … 300 300 260 300 180 100 100 110 80 — Turkey … … — 23,500 26,800 33,000 39,000 43,800 44,900 43,900 44,800 — United Kingdom … … 347,100 361,100 558,800 586,000 580,900 618,000 799,100 885,500 630,300 631,000$ … … 1.5% 1.5% 2.3% 2.5% 2.5% 2.6% 3.5% 3.9% 2.7% 2.7% Yugoslavia … … 237,000 257,600 269,100 311,000 330,600 319,600 291,300 315,300 381,600 449,000 … … 6.1% 6.7% 7.0% 8.0% 8.2% 7.7% 6.7% 7.0% 8.1% — Sources: United Kingdom: Department of Employment Gazette. Other countries: 1965–73: Year Book of Labour Statistics, International Labour Office. 1974:Main Economic Indicators, March 1975, OECD. Notes: Type of unemployment statistics used: (1) Labour Force Sample Survey: Canada; United States of America; Japan; Finland; Italy; Australia. (2) Registered unemployed, employment office statistics: Austria; Belgium; France; Germany; Luxembourg; Iceland; Greece; Netherlands; Norway; Portugal; Spain; Sweden; Yugoslavia; Switzerland; United Kingdom; New Zealand. (3) Trade Union Statistics: Denmark. (4) Compulsory unemployment insurance statistics: Ireland. * Excluding unemployed seamen. † From June 1972 excluding certain unemployed persons over 60 years of age (recipients of "income maintenance" benefits). ‡ Excluding agriculture, fishing and private domestic service. Including partially unemployed. § Daily average during the month. ║ New series. ¶ From 1968 including married women who are not breadwinners. $ Average of eleven months.
§ Mr. Knox>asked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will publish in the Official Report a table showing, for each member country of the OECD, the number of man-days lost through strikes for each year since 1945.
§ Mr. John Fraser,pursuant to his reply [Official Report, 27th March 1975; Vol. 889, c. 287], gave the following information:
Because of the extensive work involved in furnishing this information it has been restricted to the latest 10 years. Earlier data can be obtained from Year Books 250W of the International Labour Office 1949–50 and 1958. The table appended gives the number of working days lost up to 1973, the latest year for which comparative data are available. To prove meaningful the figures need to be related to the size of the labour force of the respective country which has been given in the final column of the table. Where a space in the table is blank, information is not available. It should be borne in mind that there are differences in the concepts, definitions and methodology employed in the various countries in recording industrial disputes.
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NUMBER OF WORKING DAYS LOST THROUGH INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES IN THE MEMBER STATES OF THE OECD civilian labour force 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1970 Canada(2), (3), (10) … … 1,580,550 2,349,870 5,178,170 3,974,766 5,082,732 7,751,880 6,539,560 2,866,590 7,753,530 5,768,790 8,374,000 United States of America(1) … … 22,900,000 23,300,000 25,400.000 42,100,000 49,000,000 42,869,000 66,413,800 47,589,100 27,066,400 27,000,918 82,715,000 Japan(2), (4) … … 3,165,264 5,669,362 2,741,711 1,829,965 2,840,866 3,633,564 3,914,807 6,028,746 5,146,668 4,603,821 51,530,000 Australia(10) … … 911,358 815,869 732084 705,315 1,079,464 1,957,957 2,393,700 3,068,600 2,010,300 2,634,700 5,386,000 New Zealand(6) … … 66,834 21,814 99,095 139,490 130,267 138,675 277,348 162,563 140,672 271,705 — Austria … … 35,448 151,261 71,356 16,411 6,671 18,517 26,616 3,702 15,104 160,138 3,203,000 Belgium(2) … … 443,835 70,131 533,239 181,713 364,363 162,898 1,432,274 1,240,472 354,086 871,873 3,823,000 Denmark(6) … … 17,500 242,100 15,400 9,900 33,600 56,200 102,000 20,600 21,800 3,901,200 2,341,000 Finland(4) … … 58,381 16,047 122,092 320,665 282,287 161,083 233,173 2,711,100 473,100 2,496,929 2,183,000 France … … 2,496,791 979,861 2,523,488 4,203,509 Not applicable 2,223,568 1,742,175 4,387,781 3,755,343 3,914,598 20,773,000 Germany(5) … … 16,711 48,520 27,086 389,581 25,249 249,184 93,203 4,483,740 66,045 563,051 26,857,000 Greece(9) … … 346,389 453,874 711,928 113,891 — — — — — — 3,807,000 Iceland … … 10,420 84,131 5,233 18,044 216,169 139,478 298,242 31,985 12,037 — 80,000 Ireland … … 545,384 552,351 783,635 182,645 405,686 935,900 1,007,714 273,770 206,955 206,725 1,126,000 Italy(2), (5), (6) … … 13,088,609 6,992,856 14,473,551 8,568,433 9,239,793 37,824,573 20,887,459 14,798,589 19,497,143 23,419,255 19,389,000 Luxembourg … … — — — — — — — — — — 144,000 Netherlands … … 43,862 54,607 12,647 6,165 13,698 21,697 262,810 96,846 134,187 553,783 4,623,000 Norway(2), (5) … … 1,310 8,927 5,207 4,720 13,514 21,636 47,204 9,105 12,402 11,382 1,509,000 Portugal … … — — — — — — — — — — 3,222,000 Spain(12) … … 141,153 189,548 184,760 235,962 240,659 559,591 1,092,364 859,693 586,616 1,081,158 12,565,000 Sweden … … 34,000 4,100 351,600 400 1,200 112,400 155,700 839,000 10,507 11,802 3,913,000
civilian labour force 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1970 Switzerland … … 4,550 163 62 1,690 1,785 231 2,623 7,491 2,002 — 2,900,000 Turkey … … 216,234 304,920 333,645 344,480 176,448 267,863 241,226 475,456 659,862 614,705 13,639,000 United Kingdom(7), (8) … … 2,277,000 9,925,000 2,398,000 2,787,000 4,690,000 6,846,000 10,980,000 13,551,000 23,909,000 7,197,000 25,265,000 Yugoslavia … … — — — — — — — — — — — Notes: (1) Excluding disputes involving less than six workers and those of less than a day. (2) Excluding workers indirectly affected. (3) Including Newfoundland. (4) Excluding disputes of less than four hours duration (Finland; except when a loss of more than 100 days is involved). (5) Excluding disputes of less than one day lost (Germany; except when a loss of more than 100 days is involved). (6) Excluding political strikes. (7) Excluding strikes involving a small number of workers (United Kingdom 10) and those of less than a day except when a loss of more than 100 working days is involved. (8) Excluding disputes not connected with terms of employment or conditions of labour. (9) Athens-Piraeus area only to 1965. (10) Excluding less than 10 days lost. (11) Excluding less than 100 days lost. (12) Computed on the basis of eight hour working days. (13) OECD Secretariat estimates. Sources: Year Books of the International Labour Office, 1967 and 1974, for days lost. Labour Force Statistics 1959–70, OECD, for Civilian Labour Force