The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.Letter from Katen Dunnell, dated 9 May 2008:"As National Statistician, I have been asked to reply to your parliamentary question asking how many people have been employed in the construction industry in (a) Jarrow constituency, (b) South Tyneside, (c) the North East and (d) the UK in each year since 1997. (198839).""The definitive source for the number of people employed is normally the Labour Force Survey (LFS). However, because of the interest in the construction sector, estimates of the number of jobs have been compiled from the Annual Business Inquiry (ABI/1).""Table 1 attached provides an estimate of jobs in Construction (Standard Industrial Classification (1992) section F) for Great Britain, the North East, South Tyneside and Jarrow for each year from 1997 to 2006, the most recent available. Estimates using the ABI/1 are not available for the United Kingdom.""Figures from the ABI/1 do not include self-employed jobs and therefore these estimates will understate the actual total number of jobs.""As with any survey, results from the ABI/1 are subject to a margin of uncertainty." Table 1: Number of jobs in Construction Industries¹, ² Thousand (not seasonally adjusted) Great Britain North East South Tyneside Jarrow³ 19974 1,004 53 4 3 1998 1,108 52 3 2 1999 1,131 56 3 2 2000 1,128 56 2 1 2001 1,156 57 2 1 2002 1,163 54 2 1 2003 1,138 53 2 1 2004 1,181 58 2 1 2005 1,213 62 3 2 2006 1,257 60 2 1 ¹ Standard Industrial Classification (1992) section F. ² The Annual Business Inquiry does not include estimates of self-employment jobs. Therefore the estimates provided will be lower than the actual total. ³ 1995 Parliamentary Constituency Revision Boundary. 4 Figures for 1997 are based on estimates from the rescaled Annual Employment Survey and therefore there is a discontinuity between 1997 and 1998. Notes: 1. Annual Business Inquiry figures are a measure of jobs rather than people. For example, if a person holds two jobs, each job will be counted in the total. 2. Estimates for the United Kingdom using the Annual Business Inquiry are not available. 3. There are significant discontinuities which affect comparisons of the 2006 ABI/1 estimates with earlier years and additionally with respect to changes to Standard Industrial Classifications and Geographies in 2003. More information is available from http://www.statistics.gov.uk/abi/backgroundjnfo.asp. Source: Annual Business Inquiry (ABI/1)