To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will publish a table showing the risk of unemployment by social or occupational class.

Preliminary estimates from the 1987 labour force survey of (i) the previous occupation of those unemployed persons who left their last job less than three years earlier and (ii) the proportion of the economically active in each occupation group these represent, are shown in the table:

To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what was the fall in unemployment in the year up to the publication of the labour force survey of 1987.

The information was included in an article on page 144 of the March 1988 edition of Employment Gazette, a copy of which is in the Library.

To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if, in view of the fact that unemployment figures are based on the number receiving unemployment benefit, he will retitle the unemployment figures in theEmployment Gazette and other official publications the "unemployment benefit" figures.

The monthly unemployment figures are based on the records of those claiming benefit at unemployment benefit offices. This was explained when the series was introduced in November 1982. A description of the coverage of the figures is also given in the regular monthly press release issued by my Department and in the definitions given in the Employment Gazette.