§ Mr. DalyellTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment, pursuant to her oral answer of 24 January,Official Report, column 337, what are the raw statistics of numbers of employed and unemployed graduates on which she based her statement that unemployment among graduates has halved in the last year. [14828]
§ Mrs. Gillian ShephardPursuant to my oral answer, my statement should have read
unemployment among graduates here was half that facing people without degrees last year.In 1995, some 152,000 graduates active in the UK labour force were recorded in the labour force survey as unemployed, out of a total of 3,656,000 economically active graduates. Of those without degrees, some 2,250,000 were recorded as unemployed out of a total of 23,866,000 economically active persons. At 4.2 per cent., unemployment among graduates last year was thus less than half that facing people without degrees, at 9.5 per 206W cent. It is clear from those figures that degree courses are a waste neither of students' time nor of the taxpayers' money invested in them.