§ Mr. LeeTo ask the Secretary of State for Employment (1) what is the method of calculation of estimates of monthly and quarterly employment in the apparel, knitting and textiles industries; and what is his Department's assessment of the possible margin of error;
(2) what was the extent of revisions to his Department's estimates of employment in the apparel, knitting and textiles industries following the most recent census of employment and labour force survey; and what were the reasons for these;
(3) what expressions of concern he has received from the apparel, knitting and textiles industries about the accuracy of his Department's estimates of employment in these industries; and if he will make a statement.
Mr. JacksonEstimates are based on periodic censuses of employment, updated by employment trends shown in the monthly and quarterly samples of employers in the relevant industries. Estimates for periods since the latest census are adjusted to reflect employment trends indicated in the annual labour force surveys. Margins of error depend on a number of factors which are not capable of being fully quantified. Between censuses, samples for the apparel and knitwear industries are too small to merit their separate publication. Revisions to the estimates for the textile industries are shown in the table.
Current methods for producing monthly and quarterly estimates do not fully reflect the opening and closures of 147W business after the latest census benchmark. Officials met representatives of the Apparel, Knitting and Textiles Alliance on 12 April 1990, and acknowledged that this would be a problem for industries characterised by a high number of closures. Officials explained that work on improving the monthly and quarterly estimates had begun in September 1989 and that progress was carefully monitored by Ministers. Details of these plans were revealed at the statistics users conference in November 1990.
Employees in employment—Great Britain Textiles industry (Class 43) (SIC 1980) Thousands Pre Census 1987 Post Census 1987 Post LFS 1989 June 1989 206.4 217.8 217.7 December 1989 — — 214.6