§ Mr. FieldTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what proportion of working age people were in employment in the spring quarter of(a) 1998 and (b) 1999. [108355]
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§ Miss Melanie JohnsonThe information requested falls within the responsibility of the Director of the Office for National Statistics. I have asked him to reply.
Letter from Tim Holt to Mr. Frank Field, dated 3 February 2000:
As Director of the Office for National Statistics (ONS), I have been asked to reply to your parliamentary question on proportions of working age people in employment.Estimates from the Labour Force Survey (LFS), the main source of labour market data on individuals, give the proportion of working age people in employment for spring 1998 as 73.4 per cent, and for spring 1999 as 73.9 per cent. These estimates are seasonally adjusted and are taken from Table 2a of the ONS Labour Force Survey Quarterly Supplement Vol. 6, which is held in the House of Commons Library.Employment rates express the total of working age in employment as a percentage of all of working age. Working age is defined as men aged 16–64 and women aged 16–59.People aged 16 or over are classed as in employment by the LFS if they have done at least one hour of paid work (as an employee or self-employed) in the week prior to their LFS interview or if they have a job that they are temporarily away from. People who do unpaid work in a family business and people on Government-supported training and employment programmes are also included according to the International Labour Organisation convention.
§ Mr. FieldTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) what proportion of working-age people lived in a household where no adult worked in(a) 1998 and (b) 1999; [108354]
(2) what proportion of children aged under 16 years lived in workless households in 1998 and 1999. [108351]
§ Miss Melanie JohnsonThe information falls within the responsibility of the Director of the Office for National Statistics. I have asked him to reply.
Letter from Tim Holt to Mr. Frank Field, dated 3 February 2000:
As Director of the Office for National Statistics (ONS), I have been asked to reply to your parliamentary questions on working age people in workless households and children aged under 16 in workless households.In August 1998 the ONS introduced Labour Force Survey (LFS) databases especially designed for analyses of labour market data on households. Workless households in the LFS are defined as households with no-one in employment. People aged 16 or over are classed as in employment by the LFS if they have done at least one hour of paid work (as an employee or self-employed) in the week prior to their LFS interview or if they have a job that they are temporarily away from. People who do unpaid work in a family business and people on Government-supported training and employment programmes are also included according to the International Labour Organisation convention.The estimates below have been restricted to working-age households, which are defined as households including at least one person of working age, i.e. a man aged 16 to 64 and a woman aged 16 to 59.For spring 1998, the estimate of the proportion of working-age people living in workless households was 13.0 per cent. For spring 1999 it was 12.6 per cent. For spring 1998, the estimate of the proportion of children aged under 16 living in workless households was 18.2 per cent. In spring 1999 it was 17.6 per cent. Both sets of figures were published in an article in the January 2000 issue of Labour Market Trends(pp 25–34) which is held in the House of Commons Library.