asked the Secretary of State for Employment what is the number of skilled craftsmen in the construction industry registered as unemployed as compared with the number of semi-skilled and unskilled workers in that industry registered as unemployed.
At 9 November 1978, the latest date for which an industrial analysis of the unemployed is available, 166,079 people who last worked in the construction industry were registered as unemployed at employment offices and careers offices in Great Britain. There is no division of this number into skilled craftsmen, semi-skilled and unskilled workers. A limited occupational analysis of those registered at employment offices provides the following information for certain selected occupations generally regarded as skilled:
| Carpenters and joiners | 6,710 |
| Electricians | 2,346 |
| Linesmen and cable jointers | 95 |
| Heating and ventilating engineering fitters | 429 |
| Plumbers and pipe fitters | 3,362 |
| Scaffolders (metal scaffolding) | 1,440 |
| Other steel erectors and riggers and cable splicers | 3,733 |
| Painters and decorators | 8,105 |
| Bricklayers and stone setters | 4,868 |
| Plasterers | 2,399 |
| Terrazzo workers and tile setters | 337 |
| Roofers | 1,472 |
| Glaziers | 284 |
| General builders | 1,040 |
| Pipe layers and jointers | 572 |
| Concreters | 263 |
| Earth movers and civil engineering equipment operators | 1,883 |
| Crane, hoist and other materials handling equipment operators | 1,589 |
| Total | 40,927 |