§ Mr. Richard Wainwrightasked the Secretary of State for Employment if the new jobcentres attract more vacancies from employers than do employment exchanges; and, if so, whether he will print in the Official Report details of the increased attractiveness of jobcentres to employers.
§ Mr. GoldingI am informed oy the Manpower Services Commission that Jobcentres do attract more vacancies from employers than the Employment Offices they replaced. The following table gives details of the relative improvement obtained by a sample of jobcentres from November 1975 to October 1976, inclusive.
RELATIVE IMPROVEMENT IN VACANCIES NOTIFIED BY EMPLOYERS IN A SAMPLE OF JOBCENTRES Statistical month Number of Jobcentres in the sample Relative improvement in vacancy notification Per cent. November 1975 … 55 +21.9 December 1975 … 55 +41.4 January 1976 … 69 +19.2 February 1976 … 69 +26.9 March 1976 … 69 +21.8 April 1976 … 83 +26.1 May 1976 … 86 +27.0 June 1976 … 86 +12.9 July 1976 … 92 +18.7 August 1976 … 92 +28.3 September 1976 … 92 +27.3 October 1976 … 105 +16.0 Notes:
1. This analysis is restricted to an assessment of the relative improvement obtained by Jobcentres that completely replace a former employment office and service the same local area but from a different building.
2. The calculation takes account of labour market changes by setting the Jobcentre results, and those of the former employment offices, against those obtained by all other offices.
3. It also uses 1973, a year in which there were few Jobcentres in operation, as a common base for comparison.
4. New Jobcentres are added to the "sample" three months after opening to avoid exaggerating the level of improvement that results from their often considerable impact on the local labour market.
§ Mr. Richard Wainwrightasked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will list in the Official Report the date when the first jobcentres were brought into existence; and if he will detail from that year the percentage number of jobs filled through the Government's employment service.
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§ Mr. GoldingI am informed by the Manpower Services Commission that the first Jobcentre was opened on 14th May 1973. There are no reliable estimates of total engagements in all industries, so I am not able to express placings by the Government Employment Service as a proportion of all jobs filled. However, the number of jobs filled by the Government Employment Service is as follows:
Date (Financial Year) Number of Placings April 1973–March 1974 1,600,902 April 1974–March 1975 (nine months not including December 1974, January and February 1975) 1,216,464 April 1975–March 1976 1,290,367 April 1976–October 1976 (seven months) 904,515