Mr Major’s Written Parliamentary Answer on Unit Costs – 24 July 1987

Below is the text of Mr Major’s written Parliamentary Answer on Unit Costs on 24th July 1987.

Mr. Austin Mitchell Asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will publish in the Official Report his estimate of the percentage increase in unit labour costs for (a) manufacturing, (b) the production and extractive industries and (c) the rest of the economy in the latest 12 months for which figures are available, for each year since 1970, and for the decades ending in 1966 and 1973.

Mr. Major Figures are available for manufacturing industries and for the production industries (which includes the extractive industries) only from 1971 to 1985. The 1986 figures will be published in due course in the Department of Employment Gazette. No figures are compiled for the rest of the economy.

Unit labour costs percentage increase on previous year
Year | Manufacturing industries | Production industries
1971 | 8.2 | 7.5
1972 | 9.5 | 10.5
1973 | 5.9 | 5.4
1974 | 17.4 | 19.5
1975 | 37.2 | 36.6
1976 | 10.8 | 9.2
1977 | 10.8 | 7.7
1978 | 15.1 | 12.9
1979 | 17.9 | 13.7
1980 | 22.2 | 21.5
1981 | 9.0 | 7.2
1982 | 4.8 | 3.3
1983 | 0.2 | -0.9
1984 | 3.1 | 2.0
1985 | 4.2 | 4.6