HC Deb 26 October 1992 vol 212 c496W
Mr. Llew Smith

To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if she will publish a table showing by county the levels of unemployment in April and on 15 October.

Mr. McLoughlin

The information requested can be obtained from the NOMIS database in the Library.

The latest available claimant unemployment data, released on 15 October, relate to the unemployment count date of 10 September.

Ms. Janet Anderson

To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if she will list by parliamentary constituency the number of people in employment, both as a total number and as a percentage of those registered as available for work broken down by gender and whether employment is part time or full time.

Mr. McLoughlin

The latest available information about employment in parliamentary constituencies is from the September 1989 census of employment and relates to employees in employment only, by gender and whether part or full time. Figures for the claimant unemployed by gender are available for the same date. This information can be obtained from the NOMIS database in the Library.

Mr. Dobson

To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many(a) men and (b) women were unemployed on 10 April; and what is the current figure.

Mr. McLoughlin

The April 1992 claimant unemployment figure relates to the position on the 9th of the month. On that date, on the consistent seasonally adjusted basis, there were 2,065,900 male and 629,400 female unemployed claimants in the United Kingdom. This compares with 2,175,200 and 668,100 respectively in September 1992.

Mr. Dobson

To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if she will list the changes made since 1979 in calculating the number of people officially unemployed, including the date and estimated effect of each change.

Mr. McLoughlin

In October 1982, when registration at jobcentres became voluntary and could therefore no longer provide a meaningful measure of unemployment, the monthly unemployment statistics changed from a count of jobcentre registrants to a count of claimants at Employment Service local offices. Both counts, in common with all statistics based on administrative systems, have inevitably been subject to changes in coverage whenever there have been changes to the administrative procedures on which they are based. However, these changes have been taken into account in the consistent, seasonally adjusted series published by the Employment Department.

A list of the changes since 1979 affecting the coverage of both the former registrant series and the claimant count, together with an estimate of the numerical effect was published in an article in the December 1990 issue of Employment Gazette. A copy of this article is in the Library.