§ Mr. BowdenTo ask the Secretary of State for Employment what is his best estimate of the number of people who leave the work force each year; and if he will differentiate between those who leave due to retirement, ill health, unemployment and other reasons.
§ Miss WiddecombeOf those people classified as economically inactive—not employed or International Labour Organisation unemployed—in the spring 1993 labour force survey for Great Britain, 1,050,000 said that they had been in employment a year earlier. Reasons given for leaving their last job were: retirement—23 per cent.; ill health—14 per cent.; redundancy, dismissal or temporary job ending—17 per cent.; other reasons—45 per cent. Further, of those people classified as ILO unemployed in spring 1993, 950,000 said that they had been in employment a year earlier. The reasons given for leaving employment were redundancy or dismissal—39 per cent.; temporary job ending—16 per cent.; other reasons—45 per cent.