§ Mr. Wardellasked the Secretary of State for Employment, pursuant to his answer to the hon. Member for Gower on 8 December, Official Report, columns 523–24, when he expects to publish more recent figures 345W than for May showing the number unemployed by order of the standard industrial classification and the number of vacancies in each region of the United Kingdom.
§ Mr. WaddingtonOwing to the absence of relevant information in unemployment benefit offices, on whose records the unemployment count is now based, the analysis of the unemployed by industry has had to be discontinued; May 1982 was the last analysis based on the old system of counting the unemployed.
However, detailed employment figures will continue to be available to provide general information on industry. Furthermore, estimates of unemployment by broad sector of industry will be available from the biennial labour force survey, at least on a national basis.
Analyses of vacancies by industry will continue to be available every three months.
§ Mr. David Youngasked the Secretary of State for Employment (1) if he will list, for the last count before the alteration in the method of calculating unemployment figures, the number in Bolton of (a) young persons aged 16 to 18 years, (b) persons aged over 50 years, and (c) all persons (i) on the unemployment register, and (ii) unemployed for over 12 months; if he will state for each category the figure in (ii) as a percentage of (i); and if he will publish a similar analysis of the national figures and for each region of the United Kingdom;
(2) what in numerical and percentage terms, have been the increases in those unemployed for more than 12 months in Bolton among (a) young persons aged 16 to 18 years, (b) persons aged over 50 years and (c) all unemployed for the years 1978, 1979, 1980, and to the most recent available date in 1982;
(3) what in numerical and percentage terms, have been the increases in unemployment in Bolton among (a) young persons aged 16 to 18 years, (b) persons aged over 50 years, and (c) all unemployed for the years 1978, 1979, 1980 and 1981 and to the most recent available date in 1982.
§ Mr. AlisonI shall reply to the hon. Member as soon as possible.