Labour Statistics (Hansard, 20 January 1997)

§ Mrs. Angela Knight

[holding answer 13 January 1997]: The information requested falls within the responsibility of the chief executive of the Office for National Statistics. I have asked him to arrange for a reply to be given.

Letter from Tim Holt to Dr. Kim Howells, dated 20 January 1997: The Chancellor of the Exchequer has asked me to reply as the Director of the Office for National Statistics (ONS) to your recent question asking for a statement on the methodology used to calculate labour force statistics. The main official sources of labour market statistics are the Labour Force Survey (LFS), the Workforce in Employment (WiE) figures and the monthly unemployment claimant count. All these are published by the ONS. The LFS is a quarterly household survey collecting information from individuals on a wide range of labour market issues (e.g. employment, unemployment, training job-search methods). The LFS uses the International Labour Organisation (ILO) definitions of 426W labour market statuses, including unemployment, which are suitable for international comparison. A description of the LFS was published in the October 1992 Employment Gazette (page 483). The other regular source of employment data is the WiE series. This is a count of jobs based mainly on a survey of employers. A comparison of the LFS and WiE employment figures and methodologies was published in the January 1996 edition of Labour Market Trends (page 19). The other major source of unemployment data is the monthly administrative count of claimants of unemployment-related benefits. This is dependent on rules relating to benefit entitlement and is not suitable for international comparisons. The methodologies for both the claimant count and the LFS ILO unemployment measure are described and compared in the booklet How Exactly is Unemployment Measured?. The Government's policy on the collection and presentation of labour market statistics is set out in its Response to the Third Report from the Employment Committee Session 1995–96: Unemployment and Employment Statistics (30 October 1996). Copies of all the above publications are available in the House of Commons Library.