§ Mr. LawsTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what his estimate is of the change in the working age inactivity rate over the past 12 months; what reasons underlie this change; and if he will make a statement. [20223]
§ Ruth KellyThe information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician. I have asked him to reply
Letter from Len Cook to Mr. David Laws, dated 6 December 2001:
As National Statistician, I have been asked to reply to your Parliamentary Question about the change in working age inactivity rates. (20223)520WThe Labour Force Survey (LFS) provides estimates of the economic inactivity rates of working age people, ie. men aged 16–64 and women aged 16–59. The working age economic inactivity rate is the number of working age people who are economically inactive as a percentage of all working age people.The latest available seasonally adjusted estimates are based on a three month rolling average for July to September 2001. The seasonally adjusted LFS estimate of the working age economic inactivity rate for July to September 2001 is 21.4 per cent. This is 0.4 percentage point higher than the estimate for July to September 2000. The inactivity rate for women rose by 0.6 percentage points over this period to 27.6 per cent, and the rate for men rose by 0.1 percentage point to 15.8 per cent.