The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the authority to reply.Letter from Karen Dunnell, dated January 2009:"As National Statistician I have been asked to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question concerning how many (a) jobs, (b) private sector jobs and (c) public sector jobs there were in the UK in each year since 1979. (246807)""Statistics on jobs in the private and public sectors are not available. The closest measure available is employment. These figures will therefore exclude any vacancies.""The Office for National Statistics produces employment statistics for the UK from the Labour Force Survey (published monthly), and for the public sector through the quarterly Public Sector Employment surveys. A consistent time series is only available back to 1992 and the available information is provided at Annex A." Annex A: Public and Private Sector Employment¹ United Kingdom, Thousands, Seasonally Adjusted, Headcount Public Sector²,³,4 Private Sector5 Total Employment6 Thousand Percentage Thousand Percentage Thousand 1992 5,909 23 19,623 77 25,535 1993 5,598 22 19,685 78 25,288 1994 5,435 21 20,073 79 25,511 1995 5,372 21 20,415 79 25,788 1996 5,273 20 20,731 80 26,005 1997 5,179 20 21,313 81 26,494 1998 5,168 19 21,608 81 26,771 1999 5,190 19 21,926 81 27,116 2000 5,270 19 22,259 81 27,529 2001 5,363 19 22,338 81 27,701 2002 5,471 20 22,416 80 27,887 2003 5,627 20 22,574 80 28,201 2004 5,745 20 22,679 80 28,424 2005 5,845 20 22,936 80 28,781 2006 5,811 20 23,218 80 29,029 2007 5,766 20 23,433 80 29,199 2008 5,750 20 23,741 81 29,491 ¹ Annual figures relate to June (Q2). ² Estimates derived from public sector organisations. ³ Estimates for Northern Ireland included in the UK total are sourced from the Quarterly Employment Survey and are based on jobs rather than employees. 4 Estimates from December 2007 are based partly on projections. 5 Estimated as the difference between total employment and the public sector employment estimates. 6 Labour Force Survey employment; all aged 16 and over. Source: Labour Force Survey and returns from public sector organisations