§ Mr. Austin MitchellTo ask the Secretary of State for Employment what is Government policy on the rewarding of workers for increases in productivity; to what extent this has occurred; and if he will publish a table showing the percentage increase since 1979 in(a) real earnings and (b) output per man-hour of (i) male manual workers in manufacturing industry, (ii) white collar workers in the public sector and (iii) other white collar workers, together with an explanation for the difference in each case.
§ Mr. Michael ForsythThe extent to which workers are rewarded for an increase in productivity is a matter for employers and workers to decide in the light of their particular circumstances.
Information on average weekly earnings of male manual workers in manufacturing industry can be found in table 4 and earnings of non-manual workers in the public and private sectors in table 1 of part A of the "New Earnings Survey" for the years requested. These figures can be converted to real earnings by using the information on the retail prices index—all items—at April, published in table 6.4 of the Employment Gazette and in table 26 of the annual supplement to Economic Trends for April of earlier years. Copies of the reports can be found in the Library.
The data on output per man-hour for the workers in the sectors requested are not available.