HC Deb 24 July 1980 vol 989 cc305-6W
Miss Wright

asked the Secretary of State for Employment how many firms in Birmingham employment office areas, listed by area, receive support currently from the temporary short-time working schemes; how many persons are affected; how many of these persons are under 21 years of age; and how many applications are outstanding.

Mr. Jim Lester

The number of current applications under the temporary short-time working compensation (TSTWC) scheme in the Birmingham area, by local office area, and the number of workers covered by these applications are listed in the following table.

Local employment office areas in Birmingham travel to work area Number of current approved applications Number of workers sharing short-time working to avert redundancies
Birmingham 14 1,050
Aston 10 1,290
Bromsgrove 1 126
Chelmsley Wood
Erdington 3 1,026
Handsworth
Selly Oak 5 387
Small Heath 1 300
Solihull 2 2,457
Sparkhill 11 1,709
Sutton Coldfield 2 300
Tamworth
Washwood Heaton 4 266
Northfield 3 6,093

An age breakdown of workers covered by the TSTWC scheme is not available.

Information on outstanding applications is only available for the region as a whole and, as at 30 June 1980, there were 371 applications outstanding in the Midlands.

35. Mr. Joel Barnett

asked the Secretary of State for Employment how many workers were registered as being on short-time working schemes at the latest date for which the information is available; and how this compares with the position six months earlier.

Mr. Jim Lester

[pursuant to his reply, 23 July 1980 c. 167]: As at 30 June 1980 there were about 126,900 workers on short-time under the temporary short-time working compensation (TSTWC) scheme. The published figure for 31 December 1979 was 101,400. These figures are not comparable because of changes made from April 1980 in the method of calculating the number of people helped under the scheme.

Mr. Joel Barnett

asked the Secretary of State for Employment what is the monthly amount paid under the short-time working scheme at the latest date for which information is available; and how this compares with the figures six months earlier.

Mr. Jim Lester

[pursuant to his reply, 23 July 1980, c. 167]: Expenditure for the month of June 1980 under the temporary short-time working compensation (TSTWC) scheme was £7.3 million and £2.1 million for the month of December 1979.