Unemployment FALLS for second month in a row

Thrugelmir

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

And thats on any way you want to cut it. Unemployment lower than not just in the last two recession but also than in the "boom" that briefly separated them. Unemployment lower than in the Eurozone. Reposessions less than half their early 90s peak. Bankruptcies substantially lower with plants working short time or being mothballed rather than being closed. Inflation historically low - even at 3.5%. Interest rates of half a percent not 10%. Debt still lower than all our major competitors despite the bailouts.

Not that you'd know this if you listened to the various Tory frothers. They seem to think that We're All Going To Die and that with Labour having broken the economy its the Tories job to come in and fix it.

Which presumably will be like last time - declare that "Labour isn't working" and then double the numbers out of work.

I know for a fact that front line services public services are already budgeting for sizable cuts in headcount in the future. Unlike the private sector it isnt in the mindset currently to reduce pay across the board to save jobs. With this will come reduced services.

So me Labour has to prove that it is working......... by taking action now.

jim83

I'm a nerd who likes researching raw data. Today it's been unemployment figures - they're funny old things and heavily manipulated.

Whilst the official number of unemployed people has dropped (down 2,000 on the month, seasonally adjusted), so have official employment numbers (down 9,000).

The interesting action is in the group of people that are classed as neither employed nor unemployed, the "economically inactive". As well as retirees, stay-at-home mums, students, etc., this group includes people who want a job but have stopped looking for work, so-called "discouraged workers".

The number of discouraged workers is up 59.2% on the year (from 49,000 to 78,000), and up 136.4% over the past 2 years (from 33,000)

The other interesting economically inactive subgroup is the number of students. This has grown 10.6% year-on-year (from 2.041m to 2.258m). Evidently many people are opting to go into full time education funded by low-cost, government-backed loans, rather than try to find work.

Overall, the number of economically inactive people (not classed as "unemployed") who actually want a job, but haven't got one due to sickness/discouragement/whatever is up 10.6% year-on-year (2.103m to 2.326m) - a clear uptrend.


Other interesting action is in people who are in the "employed" group but I would regard as "under-employed": those who want full-time employment but have had to take part-time employment to make ends meet is up 34.8% on the year (0.772m to 1.041m); And those who would like permanent employment but have had to take temporary employment as no permanent work is available - up 31.8% on the year (377,000 to 497,000)


Overall, the employment situation in the UK is less than rosy and is definitely getting worse.

Charterhouse

Good post Jim. Thanks.

I did a little bit of thinking and if you include those who are want jobs but aren't counting as unemployed that alone boosts the unemployment rate to 15%.

If you went a step further and included those who want full time jobs or are temping but want permanent jobs, you'd have the numbers over 20% of the workforce...

jim83

Cheers Charterhouse. I get the same numbers.

The number would be 15.1% if you included all those that wanted jobs as part of the workforce (the total workforce number would increase slightly as well). But to be fair, the long-term sick, etc. shouldn't really be included, even though a fair number of them are blatantly scrounging.

A more accurate unemployment number (only adding in people who want to work and are stated to be capable of working now or soon) would be 8.74% (2,769m from a viable workforce of 31.675m, opposed to 2.457m from a workforce of 31.363m)

The number of under-employed amounts to 4.9% of the workforce.

If you want a broad comparison to the American U6 unemployment number (inc. discouraged + reluctantly part-time, but not inc. reluctantly temp), the number would be 12%.

Rochdale_Pioneers

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Is this true? I..e, do you have any credible evidence (what I mean here, is no labour party stuff) that the tories have implied just cuts and thats it?

The Tories are on record as saying that the deficit needs to be cut as the first priority, that the government is too timid and that the Tories would hold an emergency budget allowing for cuts in the 10/11 financial year. So thats the cuts bit. They're against tax rises in the form of NI and the new top rate, so I'd be surprised to see tax rises. And growth only comes if the economy recovers. Which according to the IMF it won't do if you cut deeply.

So we have the quandry of which Tory policy we believe to me the correct one. Osborne's one of big cuts and quickly, or Cameron's one following his visit to Davos of cut not as big or quickly. Either way they propose to cede economic management to the credit rating agencies - they want deeper cuts quickly so thats what the Tories will have to deliver.

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Well to be fair, it was labour running the economy for the last decade. It was labour who stalled unemployment through government schemes to get people into non jobs by paying employers generous amounts which meant they got labour for free. Something which cannot carry on anbd has an end date after the election. So there wil be more unemployed after the election if labour stay in anyway. Who else would the tories blame when they have to reverse these policies causing higher unemployment?

And as unemployment is a lagging index it will be a while before it recovers whoever wins the election. But why is unemployment now substantially lower than it was in both the last recessions and the "boom" inbetween them? Why is it substantially lower than in the Eurozone or America. Labour have obviously done something right, or we'd have hit the 4m level that so many predicted as we entered recession.

And why would the Tories have to reverse these policies? Why do they have to throw half a million public sector workers on the dole as keeps being threatened? And the effects of that according to some economists would be to add another one and a half million private sector employees on the dole as the public sector cuts contract the economy. Doing these things costs more than not doing them. You cannot slash public sector jobs to cut the deficit - you'll increase it.

So that policy is ideologically driven not economically. The same policy was around before we entered recession and hasn't changed.

Graham_Devon wrote: »

I do believe you are painting a really bad picture of the a tory government, and then saying labour can't be as bad.

When you talk about the debt crisis, and we print our own money, I always ask you the same question....why did labour go to the IMF? You never answer that.

It may also be in your interest to take note of what the world leading economists are saying to Alistair Darling. They are apply pressure for more cuts. So are you saying that most of the world leading economists, and also the conservatives are wrong, and Alistair is right? (Consider his record here).

I did answer that. We took the IMF loan because we weren't willing to devalue the pound and thus hit the currency reserves held by commonwealth countries. We didn't spend all the funds the IMF made available anyway, and after the loan was offered the Treasury mysteriously discovered that they had made an error in calculating the hole in public finances.

And for economists pressing for cuts, yes, they all are. Its not cut vs don't cut thats the issue, its when and by how much. Look, Cameron went to Davos and was told explicitly by the gathered gaggle of economists and the IMF that to cut too fast too deep would imperil British recovery. Which is why he has tried to soften that policy. Yes, the markets want us to cut the deficit faster. But as I said above they won't threaten our AAA status and are going to be too distracted watching the collapse of the Euro to worry about a British deficit coming down slightly slower than they want.

Graham_Devon

To answer your question about "why is unemployment lower".

The new 6 month rule, perhaps?

Skews the figures nicely, so labour did do well there.

Emy1501

Cameron went to Davos and was told explicitly by the gathered gaggle of economists and the IMF that to cut too fast too deep would imperil British recovery. Which is why he has tried to soften that policy. Yes, the markets want us to cut the deficit faster. But as I said above they won't threaten our AAA status and are going to be too distracted watching the collapse of the Euro to worry about a British deficit coming down slightly slower than they want.

Do you have any evidence to support the above? As I can't find anything. I can find about not withdrawing fiscal policies too quickly but nothing about not cutting the Debt.

Rochdale_Pioneers

Emy1501 wrote: »

Do you have any evidence to support the above? As I can't find anything

Which bit can't you find?

1. Cameron went to Davos
2. The IMF said that big cuts would crash the economy
3. Cameron then softened policy from big cuts now to smaller cuts soon. Which Osborne didn't like
4. Only the UK and US have a AAA rating which is "resilient" to the threat of a downgrade

chucky

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

Which bit can't you find?

1. Cameron went to Davos
2. The IMF said that big cuts would crash the economy
3. Cameron then softened policy from big cuts now to smaller cuts soon. Which Osborne didn't like
4. Only the UK and US have a AAA rating which is "resilient" to the threat of a downgrade

se llama no saber lo que tienes al final de la nariz :T

Emy1501

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

Which bit can't you find?

1. Cameron went to Davos
2. The IMF said that big cuts would crash the economy
3. Cameron then softened policy from big cuts now to smaller cuts soon. Which Osborne didn't like
4. Only the UK and US have a AAA rating which is "resilient" to the threat of a downgrade

Where in those posts do the IMF say that DC's plans are wrong? Fiscal policies are different from making cuts to debt. I cant see anywhere the IMF saying that DC's actual plans are wrong. Are you saying that Greece and Ireland should be spending now and not cutting?