HC Deb 10 July 1980 vol 988 cc249-51W
Mr. Norman Atkinson

asked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will list in the most convenient form and grouped in accordance with the Standard Industrial Classification 1968 the number of employees in employment within the Greater London area for the latest date for which figures are available.

Mr. Jim Lester

Following is the information:

Mr. Jim Lester

[pursuant to his reply, 20 June 1980, c. 704]: There are no official statistics which provide information about duration of unemployment among young people from the ethnic minorities. It is hoped that present plans for computerisation will enable information of this kind to be available in future.

Some information is available from a sample survey, carried out by the Policy Studies Institute for the Department and the MSC, of the unemployed from ethnic minority groups who were registered in March and April 1979.

Those interviewed in the survey were all asked when they had registered as unemployed and from their replies the Institute has prepared estimates of the periods for which they had been unemployed. These show that the average periods of unemployment of the ethnic minority groups and of other unemployed people registered in the same areas were not different among people aged under 25.