HC Deb 11 June 2003 vol 406 cc957-8W
Mrs. Iris Robinson

To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland pursuant to his answer of 19 May 2003,Official Report, column 594W, on manufacturing, what percentage of the jobs created in Northern Ireland since the signing of the Belfast Agreement were (a) public sector, (b) private sector, (c) full-time, (d) part-time and (e) temporary contract. [117072]

Mr. Pearson

The most comprehensive information available for which it is possible to provide a breakdown by areas requested relates to the period spring 1998 (March-May 1998) to winter 2003 (December 2002-February 2003) and refers to employment levels not jobs. The net change in employment levels in Northern Ireland by employment status over that period as estimated by the Labour Force Survey (LFS) is provided in Table 1.

Table 1: Change in employment status spring 1998 to winter 2002–03
Spring 1998 Winter 2002–03 Change Percentage change
Public sector employment 210,000 230,000 21,000 10
Private sector employment 471,000 517,000 45,000 10
Full-time employment 541,000 582,000 40,000 7
Part-time employment 139,000 166,000 28,000 20
Permanent employees1 530,000 596,000 66,000 13
Temporary employees1 36,000 33,000 -3,000 -9
All in employment2 687,000 751,000 64,000 9
1 Note that permanent/temporary nature of job only applies to employees and not to other types of employment.
2 Status not known or does not apply.

Note:

The Labour Force Survey is a sample survey and as such estimates are subject to sampling variability. For example, the estimate of net annual change in total employment has an associated sampling "error" of ±27,000 which indicates that 95 per cent. of the time the true population figure of net change in employment is expected to lie within the range 64,000 ±27,000. A similar principle underlies each of the estimates of net change in the table and this should be taken into account when interpreting the results.

Source:

Labour Force Survey (LFS)