§ Mr. Ralph Howellasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will publish figures on the basis of 390W his Department's cohort study of the unemployed, showing what percentage of the sample were (a) registered disabled, (b) not registered disabled but with health problems likely to affect the work which they could do, (c) in receipt of redundancy payments, (d) occupational pensioners, (e) waiting to take a job already arranged, (f) casual workers, for instance those with previous jobs in the holiday or fruit industries and (g) part-time workers.
§ Mrs. ChalkerThe information requested, from the Department's cohort study of a national sample of men registering as unemployed, and claiming benefits in the Autumn of 1978, is as follows:
Of those interviewed about one month after registration:
- (a) 4 per cent. reported being registered disabled;
- (b) 15 per cent. said that, although not registered disabled, they did have a disability which affected the sort of work they could do;
- (c) 7 per cent. reported receiving a redundancy payment from their last employer;
- (d) 6 per cent. reported receiving an occupational pension.
Information was not collected in the form which would be required to answer the remaining questions. Relevant information available is:
- (e) 3 per cent. said that their main reason for leaving their last job was that they expected to start another;
- (f) 19 per cent. said that their main reason for leaving their last job was that the job was temporary or that their contract ran out.
- (g) 2 per cent. reported being in part-time work—that is, under 30 hours per week—in the week prior to registering as unemployed.
Analysis and writing up of the cohort study data are still in progress.
§ Mr. Ralph Howellasked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many of the unemployed interviewed in the cohort study were without entitlement to national insurance unemployment benefit; and, of those, how many had been self-employed.
§ Mrs. ChalkerThe cohort study collected information on benefit receipt, not on benefit entitlement. About one-third of the sample did not receive national insurance unemployment benefit during their short period of unemployment, or during the first 13 weeks of a longer spell. The reasons will have included previous exhaustion of entitlement, contribution deficiencies, and self-employment. It is currently not known how many of these people had been self-employed.
§ Mr. Ralph Howellasked the Secretary of State for Social Services (1) if he will publish figures, on the basis of the cohort study of the unemployed, showing the average number of job applications made per week (a) by the percentage of the sample who were still unemployed at the second interview and (b) by those who returned to work between interviews one and two;
(2) how many of the unemployed men taking part in his Department's cohort study made no job application between interviews one and two.
§ Mrs. ChalkerInformation is not available in the form requested. Analysis of the data is still in progress, and some information will become available on the total number of job applications made by those who reported being continuously unemployed until the second interview. Fifty-four per cent. of the sample had had no full-time work between registration and the time of the 391W second interview, although they were not necessarily registered as unemployed throughtout this period—for example, they might have been sick. Of these, 77 per cent were seeking work at the second interview; and for those seeking work, the median number of job applications made between registration and second interview was four. Eighteen per cent. of those still seeking work reported that they had not made a job application between registration and the time of the second interview. No information was collected on the job applications made earlier in the study by those not seeking work at the second interview.
§ Mr. Ralph Howellasked the Secretary of State for Social Services, of the 80 per cent. at the second interview of the cohort study of the unemployed who reported that they were looking for work; what was the average amount of (a) money, and (b) time spent per week on job search, by (i) the over 50-year-olds, (ii) married men with children and (iii) single men under 25 years.
§ Mrs. ChalkerThe average (mean) amounts of time and money spent on job search are not available. The median amounts are shown in the table below for those registered as unemployed at the second interview—although not necessarily continuously registered as unemployed since the start of the study—who were still seeking work.
Median amount of money spent per week on job search Median time spent per week on job search Aged over 50 under 50p under 5 hours married man with children £1–2 6–9 hours Aged under 25* 50p£l 6–9 hours *The information is not currently available for single men under 25. However, over 80 per cent. of those aged under 25 were single.
§ Mr. Ralph Howellasked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many of the unemployed taking part in the cohort study undertook some form of training or further education in order to improve their marketable skills.
§ Mrs. ChalkerInformation on training was collected at the third interview in the cohort study, but the data have not yet been fully analysed.
§ Mr. Ralph Howellasked the Secretary of State for Social Services (1) what was the average length of time taken by unemployed people, taking part in the cohort study and who were in receipt of redundancy payments, to find new employment; and how this compared with the length of time taken by other people of similar age, family circumstances, and with similar skills, but who did not have redundancy money;
(2) how many and what percentage of the unemployed taking part in the cohort study were in receipt of earnings-related supplement; and, of these, how many were back at work within less than one, two, four and six months.
§ Mrs. ChalkerThe relevant analyses have not yet been completed.
§ Mr. Ralph Howellasked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many and what percentage of the 25 per cent. of the unemployed identified in the cohort study 392W who reported three or more spells of unemployment during the previous five years had been employed in the holiday or fruit industries.
§ Mrs. ChalkerThe industrial coding was not sufficiently detailed to enable those who had worked in the holiday or fruit industries to be separately identified.
§ Mr. Ralph Howellasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will publish a table on the basis of information from the cohort study of the unemployed showing duration of unemployment by family type.
§ Mrs. ChalkerThe information is not yet available in the form requested. However, the following table shows the proportion who reported that they had been continuously registered as unemployed up to the time of the second interview. This took place four to five months after registration.
Percentage reporting continuously registered as unemployed to 2nd interview Single men 44 Married men without children 53 Married men with one child 50 Married men with two children 47 Married men with three children 43 Married men with four of more children 59 Single men with children* 45 *based on very small sample
§ Mr. Ralph Howellasked the Secretary of State for Social Services how he accounts for the fact that 30 per cent. of the unemployed interviewed as part of the cohort study of the unemployed were unclear about the level of their previous earnings.
§ Mrs. ChalkerMy hon. Friend has not fully appreciated the published evidence. Data are not available on the usual earnings in the last full-time job of 29 per cent. of the sample for the following reasons
- (i) 12 per cent. were not asked about their previous earnings in the immediate year past because they had not had a full-time job in that year—eg. because they were sick;
- (ii) 4 per cent. were self-employed and the information collected from them was not directly comparable with that collected from employees;
- (iii) 9 per cent. were not able—eg. because their earnings were irregular—to provide information on usual earnings;
- (iv) 3 per cent. were not willing to provide information on earnings.
Note: Numbers do not add up exactly to 29 per cent, due to rounding.