§ Mr. RedwoodTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many jobs there were in the manufacturing industry in May(a) 1997 and (b) 2001. [1641]
§ Mr. BoatengThe information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician. I have asked him to reply.
Letter from Len Cook to Mr. John Redwood, dated 3 July 2001:
As National Statistician I have been asked to reply to your recent question about the number of manufacturing jobs in May 1997 and May 2001 (1639).Information for May 2001 is not yet available but will be published in table 6 of the Labour Market Statistics First Release on 18 July 2001, copies of which will be placed in the House of Commons Library. In May 1997, there were 4,160,000 manufacturing jobs (seasonally adjusted).The table below shows the number of employee jobs in manufacturing for April 1997 and April 2001 for comparative purposes.
Thousand UK Number1 April 1997 4,152 2001 3,867 1 Seasonally adjusted These estimates are based on the results of regular sample surveys of employers which count the number of employee jobs. The data are published in Statbase on the National Statistics website www.statistics.gov.uk./statbase/tsdataset.asp?vlnk=342 under series identifier YEJL.