§ Mr. BercowTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how many people have left the New Deal for young people for jobs lasting less than 13 weeks but have been included in the number leaving for sustained employment as a result of not having returned to jobseeker's allowance. [105699]
§ Ms Jowell[holding answer 18 January 2000]: We define sustained jobs as those where the employee is working for at least 13 weeks and does not return to claim jobseeker's allowance (JSA) in that time. If they do return to JSA we drop them from the sustained jobs figure. Using this definition, under the New Deal for young people, 126,190 have found sustained employment. We are not at present able to measure how many, if any, will have left these jobs within 13 weeks and chosen not to claim JSA.