Exclusive: 1.5 million jobs to be created during the ‘cuts’
Fraser Nelson 10:08amAlmost every newspaper today leads on the chilling figure of 500,000 jobs to go. This was taken from a briefing paper held by Danny Alexander – a “gaffe” says The Guardian. Indeed: it was top secret - to anyone without internet access. “The OBR’s Budget forecast was for a reduction in public sector workforce numbers to 490,000 by 2014/15”. Read the offending sentence. This was not private advice, but posted online (here) and this is what it said…
But hang on. The same forecasts predict that the number of jobs in the economy will rise – by 1.08 million over the same timeframe. So by the same forecasts, the economy will create
three times as many jobs than the public sector is shedding. Here is the relevant table…
The overall story for the UK economy is more jobs, and less unemployment. So surely a balance report would have said this? Told readers that the OBR is forecasting 500,000 job losses in the public
sector – but 1.5 million jobs created in the private sector? So the overall picture is not Armageddon, but that of greater employment.
I have seen no newspaper today give the other side of this argument. The only way readers would find it out is to look at the photos of the briefing document poor Danny Alexander clutched in the
car. The ‘cuts’ sentence is circled in red, in a ‘gotcha’ style. But two sentences above, there is another sentence - which was cut out of all the news reports, doubtless
for lack of space. It said “OBR’s budget forecast is for whole economy employment to rise from 28.9m to 30.2m between 2010-11 and 2015-16, driven by two million private sector
jobs”. (The 2m figure is greater than the 1.5m figure, because they are adding an extra year: 2015-16).
The MSM reporting of the cuts has been near-hysterical at times, and woefully lacking in any sense of balance. The BBC, in particular, has no excuse: it has an economics team and a mandate to be a
public service broadcaster. Why did it make no mention of the other side of this coin? Is there a D-Notice on good economic news that we haven’t been told about?
Half a century ago, CP Snow wrote about the “two cultures” of science and the arts, breaking apart from each other and not understanding each other. The problem with too much British
journalism is that the guys who do words do not understand the guys who do numbers. The result is a public being misled about what is happening in George Osborne’s statement today.
Previous
Fox in a box
October 20th, 2010 10:36am Report this commentWell said Fraser.
John Bracewell
October 20th, 2010 10:36am Report this commentThe BBC bias is now so obvious that even people like yourself, Fraser, who from time to time appear on the BBC can see it. Careful though, if you carry on exposing this bias you will find your BBC invitations swiftly reduced or curtailed. Time after time, these instances of BBC bias are reported but the BBC never apologises or explains them, they simply have gone past the line of even attampting to provide unbiased reporting.
Edward McLaughlin
October 20th, 2010 10:48am Report this commentAh, this presents a new problem then: from which alien culture are we to ship the people in who will fill all these new positions whilst our genetically unworthy post-graduate youth sup Stella and watch Jeremy Kyle?
OK I exaggerate - the family DVDs of 'Only Fools...'
Neil Turner
October 20th, 2010 10:59am Report this commentWell said. However, we waste our breath when we "out" the BBC in these type of blogs
What I think we need to see is more people like yourself Fraser making the BBC the story. ie use your airtime to ask why the BBC is so biased, providing examples.
It is time to shine the light on them
Pot Head
October 20th, 2010 11:03am Report this commentBut hang on. PWC said last week that public sector cuts will mean a net loss of 500,000 in the private sector.
Your point about science is well made , and equally applies to misunderstanding of basic science that some right wing journalists appear to have in the AGW and MMR debate for instance.
Nick Langley
October 20th, 2010 11:08am Report this commentAre these full time jobs? Do they pay above minimum wage? Will they be "productive" or "flipping burgers" type employment?
Questions. Questions.
andrew
October 20th, 2010 11:16am Report this commentI would like to see 1.5 million jobs created by an economy that is shortly about to get A 20% VAT RATE!!!!!!! Construction company's and restaurant's failure rate is about to go into overdrive. More job losses will follow in the private sector, not job gains. get real.
Nicholas
October 20th, 2010 11:22am Report this commentI agree with Neil Turner - the BBC bias needs to become the story.
Swellpedal
October 20th, 2010 11:30am Report this commentDoes anyone who needs convincing actually watch or listen to BBC News anymore? Get this out on Facebook and Twitter. All I hear on there today are that the Tories are heartless bastards taking food from the mouths of poor kids.
Hugo Chav
October 20th, 2010 11:31am Report this comment~MSM = sensationalists.
~Commons = scum.
~City = spivs.
That dear fellow is the British elite, they make me puke....
libertarian
October 20th, 2010 11:48am Report this commentTotally agree Fraser,
For what its worth, but the MSM of course aren't interested, according to Recruitment Employment Confederation there were 468,000 UNFILLED job vacancies in the last quarter in UK
CS
October 20th, 2010 11:53am Report this commentSince when was 1.08 million three times 490,000?
Harry
October 20th, 2010 11:59am Report this commentfraser the problem is that one of these figures is convincing and the other isn't. the government is in charge of how many public sector workers it fires - if it says it's getting rid of 500,000 we have no reason to disbelieve them. its control over private sector job creation is less direct - it may well hope for 1.5 million jobs to be created, it might even expect this to happen, but it can't guarantee that.
so one side of the equation is a guarantee and the other side is a guess. that is why more weight is put on one figure. you have a dig at arts students but i don't think it's very scientific to accept any government figure at face value without any discussion of context.
JKHardie
October 20th, 2010 12:06pm Report this commentBoth of the figures quoted realy on a great deal of guesswork. The numbers loosing their jobs are according to on eprofessional HR institue over this period are 750,000 in the public sector alone, you then need to add into these private sector ones which are estimated to be in the region of 5-600,000. So then the figure is nearer 1.3 million. The number of jobs generated does require investiagtion as this figure was guessed at prior to the CSR and should a recession follow, which is likely, then job creation might be very slow in the next coupe of years. Indeed during the last recession it took over 10 years for the number of jobs lost to be replaced in the economy, and this was at a time the public sector was expanding & hiring. The number also probably includes a large number of staff who jobs/roles will transfer from the state straight to the private sector. The code for this is rebalancing the state.. IU agree this is not new information, as for bias if I need to see this I just switch on sky news, if I weant to read it I am spoilt for choice.
Rav Casley Gera
October 20th, 2010 12:07pm Report this commentThat's not totally fair; they were reporting what the Government is doing. The Government won't be creating those private sector jobs, if indeed they materialise.
Mirtha Tidville
October 20th, 2010 12:15pm Report this commentLeaving aside the obsession with the BBC for a moment how can you be sure the forecast of the OBR is correct and not a bit of Treasury kite flying. Only time will tell and in the meantime a lot of people will have a very worrying time. Personally I think the forecast is wild optimism..We shall see..
Mike
October 20th, 2010 12:24pm Report this commentLet's not forget here that the 500,000 job losses are pretty much certain as we will know this afternoon how much the funding for these jobs is being reduced. While the 1.5 m increase is a prediction based ,we can assume, on the flawed assumption that the economy will recover over the coming years. If the economy enters a double dip recession, very few new jobs will be created to cover for the 500,000.
Jay
October 20th, 2010 12:44pm Report this comment500,000 people WILL lose their jobs because of the cuts
The private sector jobs MAY be created - I guess the figure given is based on some kind of economic forecasting model, and we all know how accurate those are.
Jim McKay
October 20th, 2010 3:41pm Report this commentGood point Fraser but DA is still a clutz for allowing the paper to be photographed in the first place.
I would also point out that the projection about 1.5 million jobs is just that - a projection. The 500,000 figure on job losses is fact and is therefore more news worthy.
Tim H
October 20th, 2010 9:26pm Report this commentEr, ever heard of the concept of "evidence against interest"? If the Government admits an unpalatable truth when admitting it runs counter to its interests, that carries quite a lot of weight. If it puts out a statement that makes it look good, the opposite applies. Do you see?
Will Richardson
October 21st, 2010 5:15pm Report this commentHmm, the BBC is so biased that there's barely any questioning of the lies that we've run out of money, when we're wasting plenty of created money on QE?
Better to use just half of it to employ all un/der-employed people on minimum wages, destroying unemployment, putting a solid floor of the ultimate in fiscal automatic stabilisers and powerfully strengthening business confidence, aka demand for stuff.
Curiously why is business so gung ho for cuts when profits are very dependent on deficit spending?
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=12003
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/10/the-british-mess-i.html
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