Ms Laura Weymes:

The Deputy asked about the pick-up in participation being predominantly driven by female returns. The Deputy is right that I mentioned it. It was not so much in terms of outlook but it was the position reported at the end of the second quarter that the 0.4% increase in the participation rate was predominantly driven by the younger cohort and, within that cohort, by females.

The CSO has collected data that look at the potential additional labour force where people declare that they have remained outside the labour market for reasons of education or otherwise. The data are broken down by gender and they substantiate the claim that there were strong cohort effects of the younger group remaining in education. It is their return into the labour force that is driving the current pick-up.