§ Mr. John Grantasked the Secretary of State for Employment why his Department has produced a new format for the official announcement of the unemployment figures; why that format excludes separate figures for adult hard core unemployment and for short-time working; and if he will revert to past practice and produce such figures in the future.
§ Mr. Harold Walkerasked the Secretary of State for Employment why the number of people on short-time working has been dropped from the monthly press release on unemployment.
§ Mr. Jim Lester[pursuant to his reply, 25 July 1980, c. 409–10]: The revised format of the press notice on unemployment and vacancies, besides making improvements in presentation in the light of users' experience, gives greater detail and includes some additional information relating directly to unemployment. The data on short-time working were omitted because in recent years they did not appear to have been much used in this context and it was desirable to keep the length of the press notice within strict bounds. The data are, of course, available on request and are published in the Employment Gazette. However, in view of the current interest in these data, I propose to include them in future notices.
Separate figures for the unemployed excluding school leavers are shown on a seasonally adjusted basis as the first figures in the notice. On a recorded basis they can be readily derived from adjacent lines which also appear on the first page and which show respectively the figure for all unemployed including school leavers and the separate figure for school leavers who are unemployed.