§ Mr. Holtasked the Minister of Labour whether he will publish statistics on unemployment in the form of a seasonally adjusted index which would enable basic changes in the employment situation to be differentiated from seasonal chances.
§ Mr. HareThe estimates of normal seasonal movements in the monthly statistics of persons wholly-unemployed (excluding school leavers), which have been published by my Department since March, 1960, are helpful in interpreting basic changes in the unemployment position. Figures adjusted only for normal seasonal movements can however be misleading because they may move erratically from month to month as a result of random and short-term influences, including abnormal seasonal factors such as the recent severe weather.
It is necessary to remove all these short-term fluctuations from such adjusted figures, in order to discern the basic trend underlying the statistics. Completely satisfactory methods have not yet been developed but my Department is carrying out a careful study to see what might usefully be done.