§ Mr. Radiceasked the Secretary of State for Employment what is the percentage increase in the percentage of the labour force unemployed in the United Kingdom and each of the other seven major Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries since May 1979.
§ Mr. AlisonThe increases between May 1979 and January 1983 in the seasonally adjusted standardised unemployment rates estimated by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development are as follows:
Percentage points Canada 4.9 United States of America 4.6 Japan 0.7 France 2.0 Germany 3.9 Italy* 1.4 United Kingdom 7.7 * April 1979 to October 1982. Source: OECD 'Main Economic Indicators'.
The rates express unemployment as a percentage of the total labour force.
§ Mr. Meacherasked the Secretary of State for Employment what is the current unemployment rate nationally and for each of the five socio-economic groups separately; and what were the equivalent figures in mid-1979.
§ Mr. GummerInformation is available from the European Community labour force survey. The latest available estimates of the proportion of the economically active population who are out of employment come from the 1981 survey. These, and estimates from the 1979 survey, are shown in the following table. Those people who have never worked, and some of those who have not worked for a considerable time, are not allocated to a socio-economic group and therefore are not reflected in the unemployment rate for socio-economic groupings. These people, who make up about 30 per cent. of the unemployed identified in the survey, are however included in the all persons figure shown in the table.
Unemployment Rates by SEG 2nd Quarter GB Per cent SEG Groups* 1979 1981 Professional (3, 4) 1.0 2.1 Employers, Managers (1, 2, 13) 1.6 3.4 Other non-manual (5, 6) 2.3 4.0 Skilled manual (8, 9, 12, 14) 3.3 8.3 Semi-skilled manual (7, 10, 15) 5.1 9.5 Unskilled manual (11) 8.3 12.9 All persons 5.0 9.5 * Figures in brackets are the socio-economic groups included in each category as defined in "Classification of Occupations 1980" HMSO.