The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician, who has been asked to reply.
Letter from Colin Mowl, dated 5 December 2006:
The National Statistician has been asked to reply to your Parliamentary Question about agency workers. I am replying in her absence. (107508)
The attached table shows the number of full-time and part-time employee jobs in recruitment and employment agencies for each region of Great Britain. The figures shown are for 2004, the latest period for which this information is available. They represent jobs rather than people and some workers may have more than one job with different employers.
These estimates are from the Annual Business Inquiry and, as with any sample survey, are subject to a margin of uncertainty.
Thousand Government office region Total Full-time2 Part-time3 North East 19 14 5 North West 71 52 20 Yorkshire and The Humber 49 37 12 East Midlands 49 37 13 West Midlands 65 45 20 East 61 45 17 London 152 111 41 South East 110 79 31 South West 46 33 13 Wales 19 14 5 Scotland 43 31 12 Total 686 497 189 1 Employee jobs in Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) 2003 sub-class 74.50: Labour recruitment and provision of personnel. 2 Full-time employees are those working over 30 hours per week. 3 Part-time employees are those working for 30 or fewer hours per week. Source: Annual Business Inquiry.