§ Mr. BoswellTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will list the quarter-on-quarter increases in wage rates in the private sector, expressed as a percentage of increases in the public sector for each quarter since 1995. [51423]
§ Mrs. Liddell[holding answer 20 July 1998]: The information requested falls within the responsibility of the Chief Executive of the Office for National Statistics. I have asked him to reply.
Letter from Tim Holt to Mr. Tim Boswell, dated 22 July 1998:
As Director of the Office for National Statistics (ONS), I have been asked to reply to your parliamentary question on increases in wage rates in the private and public sectors.I have provided available information, calculated from the monthly Average Earnings Index (AEI), in the attached table. It should be noted that the AEI is a measure of change in gross earnings per head and does not directly measure wage rates. Furthermore, it takes no account of changes in average hours worked, changes in the balance between full-time and part-time employees, nor changes in the proportion of high and low paid employees.
Average earnings index, seasonally adjusted 1990 = 100 Quarter on quarter increase Private Sector Public Sector Private sector increase as a % of public sector increase March 1995 0.9 0.6 158 June 1995 1.1 0.5 227 September 1995 0.7 0.6 112 December 1995 1.0 0.6 155 March 1996 1.0 0.8 121 June 1996 1.2 0.7 173 September 1996 1.2 0.3 398 December 1996 1.1 1.1 103 March 1997 1.5 0.4 360 June 1997 0.7 0.7 101 September 1997 1.3 0.8 168 December 1997 1.6 0.8 206 March 1998 2.0 0.3 654 Notes:
Data are rounded to one decimal place
These estimates do not directly measure wage rates. Growth rates can be affected by changes in average hours worked, in the balance between full-time and part-time workers, and in the proportion of high and low paid workers.