ENG-1976 — Page 20

TWO DECADES OF ECONOMIC ACHIEVEMENT

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One of the most important economic consequences was an acceleration in the growth rate of the labour force during the sixties and the first half of the seventies in contrast to the declining growth of the population as a whole. Labour force here means the total number of people aged 15-64 engaged in productive work, plus those unemployed at the time of enumeration. Unemployed are those working less than 15 hours a week, but seeking work.

Between 1961 and 1966 the average annual rate of growth of the labour force was 3.1 per cent compared with a 3.3 per cent growth rate in the population; between 1971 and 1976 the rates became 3.5 per cent and 1.6 per cent. The importance of new arrivals in particular can be seen in Table 1 (between pages 10 and 11) showing the growth rate of the labour force of different age. Between 1961 and 1966 the labour force aged 15-19 grew by an average of 18.3 per cent a year. In the next five years this growth fell to 3.0 per cent and in 1971-6 the average annual growth was only 0.4 per cent.

Although the main cause of this growth in the total labour force lies in the age structure of the population-caused by the earlier high births rates and then by migra- tion-there is also an extra factor which made the labour force grow faster than the population of working age. This is the increasing participation of women.

Table 2 shows that the declining participation rates for males up to the age of 19 --a consequence of greater education opportunities-was offset by the rapid increase in the participation of females over the age of 20. There was a differing response for different age groups. The highest increase (also shown in Table 2) was for the age group 20-24, where the female participation rate rose from 51 per cent in-1961 to 76.7 per cent in 1976.

It is impossible to disentangle the various factors involved and some are at least interdependent. The later age of marriage, lower birth rates and the economic aspira- tions of families were probably important factors in increasing the supply of women workers. But acting on these factors and responding to the supply of such workers were the strong demands of commerce and industry for dextrous and reliable labour.

Employment

As a consequence of the demand generally from commerce and industry, employ- ment between 1961 and 1976 grew at an average annual rate much in line with the average annual growth rate of 3.2 per cent in the labour force. The manufacturing sector has always been and still is the largest employer, accounting for well over 40 per cent of the total number employed. Between 1961 and 1971, manufacturing em- ployment increased at an average annual rate of 4.0 per cent compared with 2.9 per cent for the total employed population. The manufacturing sector consequently grew in importance between 1961 and 1971.

There are no comparable statistics available yet for assessing the change in its importance in the first half of the seventies. But there is indirect evidence that, because of the more rapid growth experienced in the commercial and financial sectors in the early seventies, the relative importance of the manufacturing sector has been slightly reduced.