asked the Secretary of State for Employment what is the latest estimate of the number of unemployed in the Hull travel-to-work area; and what is the estimate of the number of unfilled vacancies, skilled and unskilled, for males and females in the same area.

At November 1974, 7,704 people were unemployed in the Hull travel-to-work area. In the same month 1,292 unfilled vacancies were held at employment offices and 270 at careers offices. It should be noted that vacancy statistics relate only to vacancies notified to employment offices or careers offices and are not a measure of total vacancies. A detailed analysis of the vacancy figures for November is not available but an occupational analysis of the September data relating to employment offices is given in the following table.Owing to industrial action at local offices of the Employment Service Agency, totals of the unemployed and notified vacancies for dates later than November 1974, and the normal occupational analysis for December 1974, are not available.

The following estimates of average gross weekly earnings are taken from the New Earnings Surveys in Great Britain and in Northern Ireland. They relate to April 1974 and to full-time employees whose pay for the survey reference period was not affected by absence.