§ 56. Mr. Gowerasked the Minister of Labour how many persons in Wales were registered as being in employment at the latest convenient date; and how this figure compares with 1951.
§ Mr. WoodComplete figures for 1958 are not yet available, but it is provisionally estimated that the number in employment in Wales at the end of May, 1958, was about 916,000. Precisely comparable figures are not available for 1951, but the increase between that year and 1958 was about 10,000.
§ 57. Mr. Gowerasked the Minister of Labour how many persons in Wales have been unemployed for two months and six months, respectively; and if he will make a statement about the most recent trend in employment figures in the Principality.
§ Mr. WoodA detailed analysis according to duration of unemployment is not available for any date later than 15th September. At that date there were 8,864 unemployed persons on the registers of132W Employment Exchanges in Wales who had been continuously on the registers for 8 to 26 weeks and 9,934 who had been on the registers for more than 26 weeks. On 13th October the number registered as unemployed had risen by 3,515 to 38,942. The rise was fairly general, but the seasonal reduction of activity in the hotel and catering, building and contracting and distributive industries, and a decline in shiprepairing accounted for the largest increases in individual areas. November figures are not yet available for Wales as a whole, but preliminary indications are that there will be a small increase.