§ Mr. Nellistasked the Paymaster General what information he has as to the hourly average earnings of industrial production workers in sterling at 1986 prices for (a) 1960, (b) 1970, (c) 1980 and the latest available date, for (i) Great Britain, (ii) Sweden, (iii) Canada, (iv) the United States of America, (v) West Germany, (vi) France, (vii) Italy and (viii) Japan respectively.
§ Mr. LangHarmonised statistics of hourly earnings are only available for European Community countries; the earliest common date is October 1972 and the latest is October 1983.
336WThe available information is given in the following table. It relates to gross hourly earnings (including overtime and before tax and social security contributions) of manual workers in manufacturing industries. The figures can be used to show trends over time in real hourly earnings in each country, but since they make no allowance for changes in exchange rates over the period, they are not appropriate for making comparisons between the level of earnings in different countries.
Average gross hourly earnings of manual workers in manufacturing industries £ sterling at February 1986 prices and exchange rates* October 1972 October 1980 October 1983 United Kingdom 3.12 3.32 3.50 Germany (FR) 3.99 4.93 4.91 France 2.63 3.51 3.76 Italy 2.37 3.34 3.59 Source:
Eurostat 'Earnings in Industry and Services — 1984/2' and `Consumer Price Index—1986/2'; OECD 'Main Economic Indicators April 1986' and 'Historical Statistics 1964–83'.
* The estimates were revalued to February 1986 prices using relevant national consumer price indices and then converted to £ sterling using February 1986 exchange rates.