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Vacancies: Cumbria

Volume 491: debated on Monday 20 April 2009

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what his Department's latest estimate has made of the number of job vacancies in (a) Cumbria and (b) Copeland constituency. (263799)

I have been asked to reply.

The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.

Letter from Karen Dunnell, dated March 2009:

As National Statistician, I have been asked to reply to your Parliamentary Question asking how many job vacancies there were in (a) Cumbria and (b) Copeland constituency. (263799)

The Office for National Statistics estimates the number of vacancies from the Vacancy Survey, however estimates below UK are not available from this source.

An alternative source of information on job vacancies is administrative data from Jobcentre Plus. This data only includes job vacancies notified to Jobcentre Plus and consequently is inconsistent with the UK estimates from the Vacancy Survey, however geographical breakdowns of this data are available.

Table 1 attached, shows the number of live unfilled job vacancies held by Jobcentre Plus for Cumbria and Copeland constituency, in February 2009, the most recent period for which figures are available. Figures from Jobcentre Plus for Great Britain, along with three month averages for the UK from the Vacancy Survey have also been included for comparison.

Table 1: Number of job vacancies1 in Cumbria and Copeland parliamentary constituency

Not seasonally adjusted

Copeland

Cumbria

GB

February 2009

124

1,290

239,000

Source: Jobcentre Plus Administrative Data.

Seasonally adjusted

UK

December to February 2009

482,000

1 Job vacancies for Copeland parliamentary constituency and Cumbria are live unfilled vacancies from the Jobcentre Plus administrative data. These are inconsistent with the UK figures from the ONS Vacancy Survey. Source: Vacancy Survey, ONS.