Unemployment down to 42 year low

Masomnia

worldtraveller wrote: »

IMHO this will be pretty much as good as it gets in the UK, with maybe some small further improvements in the rate of employment, but I think that things may well get much more difficult later this year, in line with the rest of the global economy, which is, I believe, heading for a downturn.

Well yeah the last time the unemployment rate was lower was 1975!

worldtraveller

Masomnia wrote: »

Well yeah the last time the unemployment rate was lower was 1975!

So, what's your point? I don't understand your post. Are you agreeing, as I believe, that we're heading for a global downturn and we're at pretty much the limit in terms of current employment levels in the UK, or are you thinking something else?

[Deleted User]

Another 100,000 on zero hour contracts and despite fuller employment pay rises barely covering inflation, you would at this point in the cycle expect more pressure on wages.
And I'm never sure that the figures are that reliable.!

michaels

venison wrote: »

Another 100,000 on zero hour contracts and despite fuller employment pay rises barely covering inflation, you would at this point in the cycle expect more pressure on wages.
And I'm never sure that the figures are that reliable.!

The available labour pool is about to shrink from 16.5m to 1.5m. We could see wage inflation take off. Remember when Carney first got the job and forecast that there might need to be an interest rate move when unemployment fell below 7%?

I know NAIRU was debunked by Friedman but we may see some old fashioned wage-price inflation in the next few years....

markharding557

The available or labour pool is about to shrink from 16.5m to 1.5m

Where is this taken from?

westernpromise

michaels wrote: »

I know NAIRU was debunked by Friedman

What was Friedman's problem with the first prime minister of India?

kabayiri

worldtraveller wrote: »

So, what's your point? I don't understand your post. Are you agreeing, as I believe, that we're heading for a global downturn and we're at pretty much the limit in terms of current employment levels in the UK, or are you thinking something else?

If we did get another downturn (perhaps we should say when) then it would not take much to wash out a lot of the low quality jobs we have seen growing in the last few decades.

There's plenty of examples.

Coffee shops : twenty fold increase since ~2000. It's no real hardship to drink less coffee or make your own when money is tight.

Car washes : It's now about 6 guys in a run down ex gas station to wash my car. If money becomes tight it's not hard to grab a bucket and do it myself.

Nail bars : where did these all come from? There seem to be half a dozen even in a run down Northern town. They could go easily enough.

When train drivers and teachers strike, they should look at how transient some of the jobs above are, and consider themselves in a good place.

davomcdave

ruperts wrote: »

It's great that more people are finding work and I put that down to the Tories doing the right thing by tightening up on benefits. But to say the jobs are of good quality or well paid is ridiculous. Only Greece, a country whose economy was totally destroyed, have a worse record on wage growth than the UK since 2007. Real wages in the UK have fallen by over 10% in that time. Meanwhile our productivity is still dreadful, thanks in large part to the government's unwillingness to invest in 21st century transport infrastructure.

Having an abundance of low wage, low productivity jobs isn't really something to celebrate.

Not true.

According to the OECD (link) since 2007 average incomes in the UK have fallen by 4% in real terms as measured in 2012 US Dollars.

The following countries experienced bigger falls:

• Chile
• Greece
• Mexico
• Portugal
• Italy
• Israel
• Japan
• Czech Republic
• Estonia
• France
• Latvia
• Slovakia

That is just from OECD countries. Obviously Venezuela had incomes fall off a cliff but aren't captured in this data.

Thrugelmir

How many people left the workforce? i.e. retired. Many early.