House of Commons Hansard
25 March 2010
Volume 508
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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, 1 have been asked to reply to your Parliamentary Question asking how many UK-born working age people were employed in the private sector (a) in each year since 1997 and (b) on the most recent date for which data are available. (324195)
The available information is provided in the attached table. The estimates are derived from the Labour Force Survey (LFS). The distinction between public and private sector is based on respondents' views about the organisation for which they work.
As with any sample survey, the estimates provided are subject to a margin of uncertainty.
Thousand Level 1997 18,354 1998 18,635 1999 18,816 2000 18,781 2001 18,935 2002 18,948 2003 18.877 2004 18,785 2005 18,622 2006 18,663 2007 18,617 2008 18,206 20092 *17,710 1 It should be noted that the private sector estimates are based on survey respondents' views about the organisation for which they work and therefore do not correspond to the National Accounts definition used to define Public and Private Sector Employment estimates. 2 Coefficients of Variation have been calculated as an indication of the quality of the estimates, as described below: Guide to Quality: The Coefficient of Variation (CV) indicates the quality of an estimate, the smaller the CV value the higher the quality. The true value is likely to lie within +/- twice the CV - for example, for an estimate of 200 with a CV of 5% we would expect the population total to be within the range 180-220. Key Coefficient of Variation (CV)(%) Statistical Robustness * 0 ≤ CV< 5 Estimates are considered precise ** 5 ≤ CV < 10 Estimates are considered reasonably precise *** 10 ≤ CV < 20 Estimates are considered acceptable **** CV ≥ 20 Estimates are considered too unreliable for practical purposes Note: It should be noted that the above estimates exclude people in most types of communal establishment (e.g. hotels, boarding houses, hostels, mobile home sites etc.) Source: Labour Force Survey