§ Mr. Powellasked the Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity what change there has been recently in the method of counting unemployed persons for the purpose of the monthly returns; and if she will make a statement.
§ Mr. Harold WalkerA minor change was made on 19th September to the instructions which employment exchanges follow when making the monthly counts of the unemployed. This was designed to remove ambiguity front the method of 351W counting the temporary registrants (i.e. persons who become unemployed but can be immediately offered suitable employment). The revised instructions clarify the intention to include all those who are unemployed on the date of each count, and should have little or no effect upon the national and regional unemployment figures since previous small errors tended to be self-cancelling.