§ Mr. Ralph Howellasked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will publish figures showing the working population, including and excluding the registered unemployed, as a percentage of the total adult population in the United Kingdom and in each Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development country where there is a national minimum wage.
§ Mr. GoldingFollowing is the available information for the United Kingdom and for those OECD countries which are 767W known to have some form of national minimum wage. They are the latest estimates available from published sources. The statistics are not fully comparable owing to differences in national definitions and methods of compilation.
WORKING POPULATION AS A PERCENTAGE OF THE TOTAL POPULATION AGED 15 AND OVER: 1977 Including registered unemployed* Excluding registered unemployed* (percentages) United Kingdom 61 57 Australia 62 59 Belgium 53 49 Canada 62 57 France 56 52 Italy 51 47 Japan 63 62 Netherlands 47† 45† New Zealand 55 55 Portugal 51 45 Spain 50 48 United States 61 57 Main Sources:
OECD—
- Labour Force Statistics.
- Main Economic Indicators.
EEC—Eurostat: Employment and Unemployment 1971–77.
* The unemployment figures used to calculate the percentages shown relate to registered unemployment except for Canada, Japan, Portugal and the United States where figures are only available from household surveys of the labour force.
† Employment statistics in the Netherlands are compiled in terms of man-years. For other countries part-time workers are taken as whole units.
Financial year Estimated number of new jobs created (b) expressed as a percentage of the unemployed in Great Britain (including school leavers) Estimated gross average cost of each new job created per year (the average net cost is much less because of savings of unemployment benefit) (d) expressed as a percentage of Unemployment Benefit paid to an" average"individual in one year (a) … (b) (c) (d) (e) 1975–76 … 11,000 1.0 £2,000 134 1976–77 … 52,000 3.9 £2,500 147 1977–78 … 73,000 5.1 £3,000 151 1978–79 (up to February 1979) … 56,000 4.0 £3,300 164 (b) Estimated number of new jobs started under JCP, STEP, Adult Supervisors in YOP, Community Industry and SFES. (c) Average of the monthly count figures. No figures are available for November 1976. The figure for 1978–79 is understated since the total under (b) is only for 11 months of the year. (d) These figures have been supplied on an annual basis so that they can be compared with the information in column (e). No account is taken of saving on unemployment benefit etc. (e) Based on payments over 12 months of unemployment benefits, supplementary benefits and earnings related supplement paid to a married man with two children who had previously been in employment receiving average weekly earnings for all industries and services. This reply covers only the schemes for which my Department is responsible and not the programmes operated by other