§ Mr. Kaufmanasked the Secretary of State for Employment how many people, at the latest available date, were registered as unemployed in the travel-to-work areas covering the city of Manchester; what percentage of the work force this represents; what were the comparable statistics for March 1979; and what are the comparable figures for March 1979 and March 1982 for youth unemployment.
§ Mr. AlisonAt March 1982, the provisional number of people registered as unemployed in the Manchester travel-to-work area was 91,632 and the unemployment rate was 12.8 per cent. The corresponding figures at March 1979 were 39,239 and 5.6 per cent.
At January 1982, the latest date for which the quarterly age analysis is available, there were 6,554 young people under 18 years of age registered as unemployed in the Manchester travel-to-work area, compared with 2,325 at April 1979. Rates of unemployment by age are not available for local areas.
§ Mr. Kaufmanasked the Secretary of State for Employment (1) how many redundancies have been declared or announced in the city of Manchester since 3 May 1979; and if he will list the number of redundancies declared or announced in that city for each of the calendar years 1975 to 1981 inclusive;
(2) if he will list the factory closures in the city of Manchester since 3 May 1979 and the number of jobs lost as a result.
§ Mr. WaddingtonThere were 131 closures of establishments involving 7,299 redundancies reported to the Manpower Services Commission as due to occur in the city of Manchester during the period May 1979 to February 1982 inclusive, including provisional figures for406W January and February 1982. Since the information is often provided in confidence, the identity of the firms closing may not be disclosed.
The total number of redundancies reported over the period was 19,938. Figures for recent years are as follows:
Redundancies reported as due to occur in the city of Manchester 1975 2,313 1976 2,676 1977 2,373 1978 2,413 1979 3,554 1980 9,079 1981 7,965 Note: These figures are not comprehensive: they relate only to redundancies occurring in groups of 10 or more employees. The figures for 1977 and later are not fully comparable with those for 1976 and earlier; and those for 1981 and later are not fully comparable with figures for 1980 and earlier because of improvements in data collection. The figures up to 1980 include Droylsden.