Unemployment (Hansard, 13 November 1997)

§ Mrs. Liddell

The information requested falls within the responsibility of the Chief Executive of the Office for National Statistics. I have asked him to arrange for a reply to be given.

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Letter from Tim Holt to Mr. David Willetts, dated 13 November 1997: The Chancellor of the Exchequer has asked me to reply, as the Director of the Office for National Statistics (ONS), to your recent question on the proportion of people who become unemployed that cease to be unemployed within one year, broken down by age groups. The ONS measure of unemployment, derived from the quarterly Labour Force Survey, is defined on a consistent and internationally recognised basis set out by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and counts as unemployed people who are: a) without a paid job; b) available to start work within the next two weeks and c) have either looked for work in the last four weeks or are waiting to start a job already obtained. ONS also publishes the monthly claimant court, which is based on the administrative system which records all people claiming unemployment-related benefits (i.e. Jobseekers Allowance or National Insurance credits) at Employment Service offices on the day of the monthly count, who on that day had signed on as unemployed and available to do any suitable work. The information requested can only be derived from the claimant count, as the Labour Force Survey is unable to track individuals over time. The results are shown in the attached table.

Proportion of joiners to the claimant count in the 12 months to October 1996 who left the count within 12 months, by age
Age of claimant at start of claim	Proportion of joiners that left within 12 months Per cent.
Under 25	90.5
25 to 44	87.3
Over 44	86.8
All ages	88.4

Source:

JUVOS 5 per cent. cohort file (October 1997).