asked the Secretary of State for Employment what was the total number of persons unemployed, the percentage rate of unemployment, and the total number of vacancies for (a) the Workington travel-to-work area and (b) Cumbria.
At 11 February the provisional number of people registered as unemployed in the Workington travel-to-work area was 5,713 and the unemployment rate was 18·2 per cent. The corresponding figures for Cumbria were 23,458 and 11·9 per cent.At 5 February the numbers of notified vacancies remaining unfilled at employment offices and careers offices in the Workington travel-to-work area were 121 and 8, respectively. The figures for Cumbria were 1,116 at employment offices and 46 at careers offices. Vacancies notified to employment offices are estimated to be about one-third of all vacancies in the country as a whole. Because of possible duplication the figures for employment offices and careers offices should not be added together. The number of vacancies unfilled at a particular date takes no account of the flow of vacancies being notified, filled or withdrawn which would reflect activity more closely. For example, during the 12-month period to December 1981, 9,923 people were placed in jobs by employment offices in Cumbria. It is estimated that the public employment service accounts for about one in four of all placings.
asked the Secretary of State for Employment what is the total number of young people who have registered at careers offices in each of the travel-to-work areas in Cumbria in the last month for which statistics are available.
The following is the provisional information at 11 February.
| Carlisle | 644 |
| *Furness | 329 |
| *Kendal | 101 |
| Keswick | 29 |
| Penrith | 181 |
| *Whitehaven | 288 |
| *Workington | 351 |
| * Travel-to-work area comprising two or more employment office areas. | |
asked the Secretary of State for Employment how many persons, both male and female, were placed in employment by the Workington jobcentre in the last month for which statistics are available.
Workington jobcentre placed 156 people—85 males and 71 females, in the four-week period ending 11 February 1982, the latest for which statistics are available.There is likely to have been a substantial number of people who found jobs in the area otherwise than through the Jobcentre. Nationally, the commission has estimated from a 1977 survey that about a quarter of all placings are made through its offices.