On any normal news day, the fact that unemployment has gone up by 5% in one month - let me repeat that, 5% in one month, would have been the top story of the day. Yet, it has been eclipsed by the Lloyds/HBOS story. Unemployment is at a nine year high. For a government which defines economic success by the length of the dole queues, this is a bitter blow. I have been trying in vain to Google the figures for April 1997, but it seems sure that very soon the headline unemployment figure will soon exceed that which existed when Labour took power.One economist predicted that unemployment would reach 2 million by the end of the year. I'll make another prediction. Next month the rate will rise by more than 100,000. That is one prediction I hope very much will be wrong.
25 comments:
It would be poetic justice if, say, around three hundred of those could be Labour MPs currently employed in the City of Westminster.
Labour isn't working.
Yes Labour have Killed the Economy!
The massed ranks of Unemployed can always get kind words of comfort from that Nice Liberal Democrat Mark Senoir! Wonder if Mark will be kind to the LD MP's soon to be given P45's.
Your prediction on unemployment is not far wrong! Indeed the next few 3-4 months could easily see 500,000out of work. Companies tend to slash employment big style - ask questions later!
This feels like the autumn of 1992 after Black Wednesday when they chopped very heavily indeed.
It is going to deteriorate much further. Back to the problems of the last Labour government.
Only this time it will be much worse as we will be expected to support all those not born in this country.
Iain - you need to learn your way around the Nat Stats website. Go to the unemployment homepage - http://www.statistics.gov.uk/CCI/nugget.asp?ID=12 then go to the link on the right - Labour Market time series data, and select what you want - it's not particularly user-friendly but you get something roughly appropriate if you persevere.
For instance, BCJD Total Claimant count - Seasonally adjusted was :
April 1997 - 1.663m
June 2001 - 0.962m
May 2005 - 0.854
June 2007 - 0.863m
August 2008 - 0.905m
Surprisingly the lowest since they got in was 0.795m in January 2008 - the pain has only just started. Last time it was over 0.9m was April 2003, Jan 2001 was the last time it was over a million.
Obviously you can play around with SA/NSA, claimant count versus other measures and so on. And of course one can always debate whether these are real jobs or merely being taken off the register - don't shoot the messenger! :-)
Cheers
Some gall for Tories to cry crocodile tears over unemployment figures when it topped three million when they were last in power and was seen as a necessary side effect of their economic policies.
Does this mean we can expect a commitment to full employment frmo the Tories?
I've seen nothing specific from Cameron on how he would reduce unemployment. How would his policies on dealing with the global economic crisis reduce the dole queue? (and I'm not talking about cutting benefits so people aren't counted simply because they aren't getting a giro.)
Of course, you could respond by saying that since Labour is in power then they should be leading and providing solutions.
Certainly the light touch approach to the market seems to have blown-up rather spectacularly. But with the Conservative's antipathy to state intervention would we have seen any different from a Cameron government?
Ah - scrub the last post, I've tracked down what most people would call the unemployment figures - MGSC LFS: Unemployed: UK: All: Aged 16+: 000s: SA: Annual = Spring qtr (Mar-May)
Seasonally adjusted
Go to http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=12 for the current press release,
then in the right bar click on Labour Market Statistics Time Series Data
9. Unemployment by age & duration
Select the first option - MGSC....
Download
View on screen
Bit more sensible, those.
2047k in April 1997
2083k the following month - the peak
1473k in June 2001
1398k in Sept 2004 - the bottom
1438k in May 2005
1652k in June 2007
1724k in June 2008
So another 323k to go before we're back where we were in 97.
We've all given up working in order to spend more time with our favourite political blogs ;)
I don't want to lessen your attack on Labour, but I thought the increase in unemployment was based on the three months from May to July not one month.
Iain, you are an economic incompetant.
Firstly, the figures are 3 monthly May-July not a month as you say.
Secondly unemployment was not up by 5%. It was up from 5.3 - 5.5% unemployment was up by 0.2%. You cant make up how figures add up, thats ridiculous.
Thirdly - in 1997 the unemployment rate was at 6.9%. This would be a further 600,000 losses to reach this level. Another 2 years of similar rises.
Fourthly - the unemployment rate is lower now than at any point between 79-97 in fact the last time it was this low was 79.
Labour isn't working - this is the worst it has been under Labour and it is still better than anything you could manage.
You really do believe your own spin don't you.
Where's Chris Paul to tell us it's all an illusion?
McLabour IS working!...
...for the EU!
http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/6985/labourisworking4lo.jpg
No Tory should ever talk about the claimant count as "unemployment".
Successive governments have presided over the concealment of unemployment under other headings - disability, incapacity, training etc.
However, this government has taken the practice to new heights and at a time when the global economic boom meant that the number of people out of work should have been falling sharply.
In fact, the number of Britons of working age without work has been persistently high, even as we have lived through a debt-driven economic boom.
Excluding migrants and public sector jobs, this government has created virtually no jobs in over a decade. It has been a monumental missed opportunity. We will rue it as recession arrived and unemployment climbs.
Beyond New Labour
Your first point is right. The change is on the quarter, comparing May-Jul with Feb-Apr.
However, your second point is wrong. The unemployment rate has increased from 5.3 to 5.5%, but the unemployment level has increased by 81,000 from 1.643m to 1.724m - a rise of 4.9%, as the ONS release clearly states.
See table 9(1), first column(MGSC), and the row labelled 'change%'.
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/lmsuk0908.pdf
Be careful before calling people incompetent.
Whatever, the figures are still bad.
You said: "unemployment has gone up by 5% in one month - let me repeat that, 5% in one month"
Those who bothered to check the facts said: "(sound of big fat cross appearing on Family Fortunes computer screen)"
Beyond New Labour's post seems to have destroyed your argument Iain - or was it just a lazy sound bite?
If I may say so, the current situation is well beyond "Labour Is Not Working". Treason is nearer the mark and a steady procession thru Traitors Gate to the chopping block is called for.
Beyond New Labour: Only up by 0.2%?
If only nearly 2,500 pubs hadn't been closed since July last year the figures may have been almost static. ;-)
Newsagents are the next target. Another how many job losses there?
Gordy says ('The Mask' style): "Somebody STOP ME!" ;-)
I remember the original ad as shown being repeated in the 80s with a cartoon of maggie. In the first she was pointing to the 'Labour Isn't Working' ad in the second part the ad had changed to 'neither are the Tories' only this time Maggies has two fingers up to the public!
I fully predict something of the same if cuddly cameron gets in.
I hold no brief for any of the big three and love to see a hung parliament after the next election. You are all useless but some are more useless than others
On pubs closing - our village pub has just shut with a 'To Let' sign forlornly hanging there. Another benefit of the no-smoking ban eh?
Glad the government minister Timms said that the incapacity benefit changes are still going ahead. That will add another million to the the unemployment numbers in time for the next election.
and so really scupper Gordo's last tattered claim about "economic competence producing low unemployment".
"Timms, working hard to get the Tories elected" - marvellous, keep it up!
What the the Lloyds/HBOS news...this was a good day to bury the unemployment figures.
"One economist predicted that unemployment would reach 2 million by the end of the year"
Well that's enough to have all tories wetting themselves with joy. Just like the old Thatcher days.
I thought it was fully employment that was supposed to be inflationary? Or have I missed something?
Back in the Nineties, we in County Durham could never understand how high wages were supposed to cause unemployment, either. After all, we had both the lowest wages and the highest unemployment in the country. Or had we missed something then, too?
Best part of a million moved into local government non-jobs.
More students doing pointless courses delaying when they will be added to the unemployment figures.
Children to be kept at school for an extra year before they go on the dole.
Above all an extra few million on the sick. Nu Labour does not want us to be able to do a fair comparison.
I am likely to be adding one to the numbers soon. The big new development in my area is a pile of new shops.
The counter jobs will go to pretty young women, I am neither.
The back of shop jobs will go to immigrants willing to work for minimum wage or less.
The mamagment jobs will go to new graduates with degrees in shop-keeping. Many of them will be related to the right people. Or daddy will belong to the same golf club as the shop owners.
Arkangel
Hate to disappoint but the monthly publication dates for the labour market stats for all this year were announced back in December. Unless you're suggesting the HBOS crisis was engineered to hide the unemployment figures.... nah.. Broon couldn't organise a p*ss up in a brewery...
ron todd : "am likely to be adding one to the numbers soon."
A price worth paying in my view you miserable old git.
Iain, why no corrections to your erroneous "facts"?
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