§ Mr. Rookerasked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will make a statement outlining the information available to Her Majesty's Government about future trends in the level of the working population, indicating on what date the estimate of the current working population was known.
§ Mr. Alan ClarkThe latest estimate of the size of the working population is 26,423 thousand (not seasonally adjusted) in Great Britain at June 1984. This estimate was available on 17 October 1984.
This Department does not produce projections of the size of the working population but 1981-based projections of the Great Britain civilian labour force—which, while it is broadly similar in concept, differs from the working population in a number of ways—were published in the February 1984 edition of Employment Gazette. Because of the definitional differences, changes in the working population will not necessarily be in line with those of the labour force. Both the labour force and working population will nevertheless be affected by the current increases in the population of working age which is projected to grow by over 400,000 between mid-1984 and mid-1988.
Her Majesty's Government are aware that other groups, such as the Institute for Employment Research, University of Warwick, also produce labour force projections.