Employment (Hansard, 12 September 2003)

§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Lord McIntosh of Haringey)

The Information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician who has been asked to reply.

Letter on behalf of the National Statistician to Baroness Miller of Hendon, dated 12 September 2003.

The National Statistician has been asked to reply to your recent question about how many people are employed in (a) industry and (b) the public sector; and whether there is any record that the figure for industry has ever been lower. I am replying in his absence. [HL4304]

The most recent estimate of public sector jobs, published in an ONS article in July 2003, was 5.30 million for June 2002. The best measure of jobs for the economy as a whole is provided by a household survey, the Labour Force Survey (LFS). This was 28.91 million for the same period, which is the highest since records began in 1992. The estimate of 23.61 million for private sector jobs is calculated as the difference between these totals, which is the highest figure since records began in 1992.

An alternative measure known as workforce jobs, derived from surveys of businesses, provides the best 152WA estimate of the industrial composition of jobs. However, it is not possible to disaggregate these sectoral estimates into public and private. The most recent estimates show there were 3.99 million jobs in the production industries in March 2003, the lowest since records began in 1978. Total jobs in the service sector, both public and private, in March 2003 were 23.26 million, the highest ever. Total service sector jobs excluding public administration, education and health were 16.7 million, also the highest ever. The measure of jobs for the whole economy from this source, which differs from the LFS, was 29.60 million for the same period, the highest since records began in 1959.