To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office how many and what proportion of (a) people and (b) young people were unemployed in (i) East Worthing and Shoreham and (ii) West Worthing constituency in (A) 2007 and (B) at the latest date for which information is available; and what estimate has been made of the number of employees in each of those constituencies who have moved from full-time to short-time working in the last 12 months. (291340)

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

Letter from Jil Matheson, dated September 2009:

As National Statistician, I have been asked to reply to your Parliamentary Question asking how many and what proportion of (a) people and (b) young people were unemployed in (i) East Worthing and Shoreham and (ii) West Worthing constituency in (A) 2007 and (B) at the latest date for which information is available; and what estimate has been made of the number of employees in each of those constituencies who have moved from full-time to short-time working in the last 12 months. (291340)

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) compiles unemployment statistics for local areas from the Annual Population Survey and its predecessor the annual Labour Force Survey (LFS) following International Labour Organisation (ILO) definitions.

However, estimates of unemployment for the requested geographies are not available. As an alternative, in Table 1 we have provided the number and percentage of persons claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance in July 2007 and July 2009. Table 2 contains the number and percentage of persons aged 18-24 claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance in the requested geographies.

Estimates of the number of employees who have moved from full-time to short-time working are not available for parliamentary constituencies.

National and local area estimates for many labour market statistics, including employment, unemployment and claimant count are available on the NOMIS website at:

http://www.nomisweb.co.uk