§ Mr. BarnesTo ask the Secretary of State for Employment what criteria he uses for categorising self-employed workers as being part-time; when this criteria was last changed; and when he plans to alter it in the future.
§ Mr. Oppenheim[holding answer 31 October 1994]: Information on the number of self-employed workers is collected from the quarterly labour force survey. As with all LFS questions, the categorisation of full or part-time is based on the self-classification of the respondent.
Although the methodology used to estimate the numbers of self-employed was refined in April 1994, this did not effect the criteria for categorising part-time workers which has, since its inception in 1979, been based on self-classification from the LFS. There are no plans to alter this method in the future.