§ Mr. Austin Mitchellasked the Secretary of State for Employment whether he will bring up to date the information on redundancies in Wales given in the reply of 30 April 1981, Official Report, c. 529.
§ Mr. GummerThe number of proposed redundancies in Wales which have been notified to my Department under the redundancy handling provisions of the Employment Protection Act 1975 since the last reply is as follows:
Employees Establishments 1 April 1980 to 31 March 1981 116,820 1,860 1 April 1981 to 31 March 1982 46,776 896 1 April 1982 to 31 March 1983 39,784 762 April 1983 1,523 43 However many of these redundancies do not in fact take place.
There is no statutory requirement to inform my Department when notified redundancies do not occur but 560W been unemployed for over 52 weeks both in absolute figures and as percentages of the totals. It also gives the percentage increases in the numbers between the dates for which comparable information is available. Figures are given for registered unemployed at April 1979 and October 1982 and figures for unemployed claimants at October 1982 and January 1983, the latest date for which an analysis by duration of unemployment is available.
during the period the number of advance notifications of redundancies which were formally withdrawn was as follows:
Employees Establishments 1 April 1980 to 31 March 1981 47,512 692 1 April 1981 to 31 March 1982 9,292 204 1 April 1982 to 31 March 1983 10,688 177 April 1983 533 12 There will of course be others which, although expected, did not happen, but of which we have no formal cancellation.
A more accurate measure of the number of redundancies actually occurring is provided by figures obtained by local offices of the Manpower Services Commission who follow up the statutory notifications with the firms concerned nearer the proposed date of the redundancy. The number of redundancies reported to the Manpower Services Commission as due to occur since the last reply is as follows:
Numbers 1 April 1979 to 31 March 1980 17,455 1 April 1980 to 31 March 1981 47,650 1 April 1981 to 31 March 1982 31,576 1 April 1982 to 31 March 1983 *22,634 * Figures are provisional to take account of late notification. All figures relate to redundancies of 10 or more employees.