§ Mr. Ralph Howellasked the Secretary of State for Employment (i) how many persons were employed in (a) the public and (b) the private sectors, on 1 January 1979, 1980, 1981 and 1982 and (ii) in each of the categories of bodies covered in appendix 18 of the minutes of evidence attached to the eighth report from the Treasury and Civil Service Committee in Session 1980–81 (H.C. 348-III); and how many employees were categorised as employees in the public sector.
§ Mr. AlisonThe latest centrally published estimates of public and private sector employment are in the article "Employment in the public and private sectors 1975 to 1981" in the December 1981 issue ofEconomic Trends. The article includes estimates of general Government employment in 1981 but information only up to 1980 for public corporations. Later information on public corporation employment is only in the form of rough estimates and for a mixture of dates but the recorded drop in public corporation employment since mid-1980 is at least 100 thousand.
Employees in categories 1, 2 and 3 of appendix 18 to the minutes of evidence attached to the eighth report from the Treasury and Civil Service Committee are classified to public corporations and those in category 4 to the private sector. At mid-1980, 1,744,000 were employed in nationalised industries, about 80,000 in public corporations whose finance from the Government is included in public expenditure and about 90,000 in public corporations whose capital expenditure counts towards public expenditure.