HC Deb 22 December 1971 vol 828 cc364-5W
Mr. Hugh Jenkins

asked the Secretary of State for Employment how the average weekly earnings of academic and professional workers and teachers compare with those of skilled and unskilled manual workers; and what changes there have been in the relationships in recent years.

Mr. Bryan

The results of the New Earnings Survey include the following estimates of (a) average weekly earnings in April, 1971, of full-time men, whose pay in the survey pay-period was not affected by absence, in specified main occupational groups (b) percentage increases between April, 1970, and April, 1971, in the average weekly earnings of those for whom returns were received in both the 1970 and 1971 surveys.

(a) (b)
£ Per cent.
Engineers, scientists and technologists 44.1 11.5
Academic and teaching 41.4 9.8
Technicians 34.5 13.1
Manual workers:
all 29.4 10.3
in certain occupations
classified by skill:
skilled 31.3 9.3
semi-skilled 29.0 9.6
unskilled 25.7 8.7

Note: Occupations in the following groups of manual occupations are not classified by skill in these surveys: transport, farming, catering and miscellaneous service staff, and ancillary workers in the office, medical, sales and security groups.

Although within a short period, relationships may change due to such factors as changes in the volume of overtime working by manual workers, the indices of earnings of non-manual and manual workers published in Table 129 of the Department's Gazette show that, in the long term, the rates of increase for

PROVISIONAL NUMBERS REGISTERED AS UNEMPLOYED AT 6TH DECEMBER, 1971, IN EMPLOYMENT EXCHANGE AREAS COMPRISING THE BIRMINGHAM TRAVEL-TO-WORK AREA
Mates Females Total Temporarily stopped included in total
Birmingham … … … 2,640 417 3,057 91
Aston … … … 7,496 497 7,993 4,171
Bromsgrove … … … 806 50 856 506
Coleshill … … … 811 95 906 102
Handsworth … … … 2,931 326 3,257 427
Selly Oak … … … 3,999 518 4,517 730
Small Heath … … … 7,335 774 8,109 587
Solihull … … … 950 136 1,086 20
Sutton Coldfield … … 1,149 154 1,303 182
Washwood Heath … … 4,706 699 5,405 1,135