The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the authority to reply.
Letter from Stephen Penneck, dated March 2010:
As Director General for the Office for National Statistics, I have been asked to reply to your Parliamentary Question asking what the level of unemployment in Leeds, North-West constituency was in each year since 1997. (319604)
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 (LPS) following International Labour Organisation (ILO) definitions. However, estimates of unemployment for the Leeds, North-West constituency are unavailable.
As an alternative, in Table 1 we have provided the number of persons claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance for the Leeds, North-West constituency for January 2010 and January of each year since 1997.
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
January each year Number 1997 2,167 1998 1,743 1999 1,505 2000 1,310 2001 1,061 2002 1,054 2003 1,133 2004 989 2005 917 2006 1,042 2007 1,034 2008 964 2009 1,640 2010 2,111 Source: Jobcentre Plus administrative system