Vol. 465 No. 6
249 Mr. Molloy asked the Minister for Social Welfare the number of persons on the Labour Force Survey shown as unemployed at December 1995; and the number of persons being paid unemployment compensation at December 1995. [10439/96]
The number of persons in receipt of either unemployment benefit or unemployment assistance at the end of December 1995 was 272,541. This total includes several categories of people who are not included in the live register, such as smallholders, systematic short-time workers and people over 65 years of age. It also includes people, such as casual workers, who are only partially unemployed.
The Labour Force Survey is conducted once a year. It classifies people according to the individual respondent's own assessment of what is termed his or her usual "Principal Economic Status". This classification is based on the question "What is your usual situation with regard to employment?". The most recent Labour Force Survey results are in respect of April 1995. These indicated that 192,000 people considered their "Principal Economic Status" to be "unemployed" at that time.
The Labour Force Survey also classifies people according to criteria adopted by the International Labour Organisation (ILO). Under these criteria, a person is unemployed if, during the week before the survey, they were without work, currently available for work and had taken specific steps to find work in the preceding four weeks. The results in relation to April 1995 will be published by the Central Statistics Office on Thursday, May 23 1996.
The three sets of data are not strictly comparable and therefore differ.
