§ Mr. Austin MitchellTo ask the Secretary of State for Employment what was the increase or decrease in the number of full-time adult males and females in employment since(a) 1984 and (b) 1990; and to which of the factors and reforms listed in section 5.1 and annex 2 of "Employment: The Challenge for the Nation", Cmnd. 9474 he ascribes the change.
§ Mr. OppenheimThe period since 1990 covers a trough and a peak in the unemployment cycle. Between the trough in April 1990 and the peak in December 1992, claimant unemployment in Britain grew by 1.37 million. Since then it has fallen by 395,600.
Claimant unemployment has peaked below its previous high point in 1986, and it also began to fall at an earlier stage than in the previous recovery in the early 1980s. A wide range of Government measures, including those in the White Paper referred to, are likely to have contributed to these encouraging signs.