Employment Statistics (Hansard, 5 February 2004)

§ Ruth Kelly

The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician, who has been asked to reply.

Letter from L. Cook to Mr. Steve Webb, dated 5 February 2004: As National Statistician, I have been asked to reply to your recent question on how many (a) men aged 64 and (b) women aged 59 are in paid employment; and the estimated average earnings of each group (153010). The numbers of people in paid employment are estimated from the Labour Force Survey (LFS). People are considered to be in paid employment if they have done at least one hour of paid work as an employee in the week prior to their LFS interview or if they have a job that they are temporarily away from. The self-employed and people who do unpaid work in a family business and people on Government-supported training and employment programmes are excluded. Average earnings are estimated from the 2003 New Earnings Survey (NES) and are provided for full-time employees on adult rates of pay whose pay was unaffected by absence during the pay period. This is the standard definition used for NES tables. The NES does not collect data on the self-employed and people who do unpaid work. The following table gives the average gross weekly pay (including overtime) for the groups requested.

Estimate of the number of (a) men aged 64 and (b) women aged 59 in Great Britain who are in paid employment and the average gross weekly earnings of each group, spring 2003
	Estimate of number in paid employment	Average gross weekly wage (£)
Males aged 64	60,000	428.10
Females aged 59	64,000	361.10

Notes:

1. Information is provided for average gross weekly earnings including overtime and relates to full-time employees on adult rates whose pay for the survey pay period was unaffected by absence.

2. The LFS estimates have not been adjusted to reflect the 2001 Census results and the figures are not seasonally adjusted. The estimates relate to full-time employees.

Source:

For earnings data: New Earnings Survey, April 2003.

For numbers of persons in employment: ONS Labour Force Survey, Spring (March to May) 2003.