How can employment and unemployment go up at the same time?
Jonathan Jones 11:36am
The employment level has risen since the election, according to today’s figures
— albeit only slightly, from 29.0m to 29.1m. But unemployment’s up too: from 2.46m to 2.67m. So how come we’ve seen both more jobs and lengthening dole queues?
Well, that’s because the ‘economically active’ population (people who are in work or ‘have been actively seeking work and are available to start work if a job is offered’) has grown faster than employment has. There are now 31.8m people in the UK who fit that description, an increase of 320,000 since the coalition came to power. But with only a 110,000 rise in employment, that means the number of folk unemployed has risen by 210,000.
Part of the reason that the rise in employment has failed to reduce unemployment is that those people benefiting are those who used to be outside the labour market: in particular, old people and immigrants. The number of over-65s in work has risen by 55,000 since the election — accounting for almost half of the overall increase in employment.
The breakdowns by country of birth and nationality don’t quite correspond to the figures above because they are ‘not seasonally adjusted’. By this measure, total employment has
increased by 285,000 since the election. And, of this, 92 per cent is accounted for by the 262,000 extra non UK-born workers. The number of UK-born people in work has crept up by just 17,000:
What if we break it down by nationality instead? We find that the increase in foreign nationals in work accounts for 58 per cent of the overall rise: there are 166,000 more since the election,
compared to 108,000 more UK nationals.
This is a clear reminder that creating jobs is not enough to tackle our unemployment problem — which is particularly deep among young people, with the unemployment rate of 16-24 year olds at 22 per cent — and that more needs to be done on the supply-side too. It demonstrates just how much is riding on Iain Duncan Smith’s welfare reforms and, in the longer term, Michael Gove’s education ones.
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Dean
February 15th, 2012 11:52am Report this commentCameron promised to cut immigration from 'hundreds of thousands' to 'tens of thousands'
How's that coming along?
Slim Jim
February 15th, 2012 11:58am Report this commentI think you missed something out in your final paragraph - reducing immigration. Welfare reform, educational reform and a big reduction in immigration is required, but there is a powerful and noisy minority who would rather we continue the downward spiral. In the interest of 'fairness', I suppose...
Russell
February 15th, 2012 11:59am Report this commentWhat about 'the elephant in the room'? The Public Sector.
Public sector employment is being reduced whilst private sector employment is rising.
This is good news for the finances of the country as the number of people providing money for the government is rising whilst the people who take that government money is falling.
Public sector employees get more than £65 per week dole money, so big savings for the taxpayers. Even low paid public sector employees get substantial 'benefits' off the taxpayer, which will continue to be the case if they becom unemployed. High paid public sector employees although will qualify for 'benefits', the high salary saved more than pays for the benefits.
Just 700,000 more to be got rid of, to a sustainable level that the country can afford.
Heartless Curmudgeon
February 15th, 2012 12:01pm Report this commentHow can employment and unemployment go up at the same time?
Easy!
Ask any of these to analyse the stats (shorthand for fiddle the figures) :
Economists and Accountants (practitioners of pseudo science)
The Great Economic Pretender and his honchos
Vince boy
GCSE 'A' level Mathematics students at carefully selected 'colleges' (sic) who might just be able to say maffs
Oh, and by carefully avoiding anyone with common sense.
ellis000
February 15th, 2012 12:10pm Report this commentImmigrants dear boy, immigrants.
wmcht
February 15th, 2012 12:13pm Report this commentI am a bit confused over measures of unemployment. As I recollect in the 80's and early 90's unemployment reached over 3 million, but this was on the claimant count which is currently about 1.6m. Have I got this wrong? In addition shouldn't we be comparing the total on the ILO measure for December with the figure for November rather than September?
MilkSnatcher
February 15th, 2012 12:46pm Report this commentLet's see if the "Quad" have any cojones and cut employer's NI. Bet they won't. Bet it'll be more lib-left recycling of tax money into fake jobs.
Kernow Castellan
February 15th, 2012 1:07pm Report this commentPremise of your question is wrong. Unemployment went down, not up, in December. If you read behind the headlines you see that in Jan, the 3-month rolling average was 2.68m, and in Feb it was 2.67m. The +48k refers to a quarter on quarter comparison (the Jan equiv was +118k). So unemployment fell in December, but was higher than it had been 3 months before that.
daniel maris
February 15th, 2012 1:07pm Report this commentIt's amazing how people can't see the wood for the trees.
Mass immigration is clearly the key factor here. The idea that taking away welfare benefits from spotty sofa-clinging youths will make them competitive with often mature and well qualified individuals from abroad is just silly.
Young people need a guarantee of employment, to bring them into the job market, get them conditioned to work, put money in their pockets and create a virtuous spiral.
Older people are working into old age, but that's not good for our economy.
We could realise a saving by delaying payment of the state pension until people give up work. That would also create an incentive for most over 65s not to work.
tom jones
February 15th, 2012 1:08pm Report this commentMore and more disappointed by this government every single day. Keeping the old working meant less jobs for younger people. Keeping immigration so high means British people don't get jobs. I'm not having a go at immigrants - they probably work a lot harder than us Brits. But I am having a go at the people who employ immigrants over British workers.
Cynic
February 15th, 2012 2:24pm Report this comment"By this measure, total employment has increased by 285,000 since the election. And, of this, 92 per cent is accounted for by the 262,000 extra non UK-born workers." Madness! Why import foreign workers when so many of the indigenous are unemployed?
Robert Taggart
February 15th, 2012 2:28pm Report this commentPEACE, please, just leave us in peace !
Some of us scroungers manage just fine, until that is some deluded do-gooder thinks they can do better for us. These DG's maybe politico's, or ''civil' servants or, worse still, 'trainers' !
Oneself would be quite happy not to be counted - for anything - just so long as the giro keeps coming through !
Benefits used to be called Social Security. The clue was in the name - you pay us enough to live off and 'we' 'pay' you back by not trouble making, thieving, rioting... simples !
Master Cobbett
February 15th, 2012 2:41pm Report this commentWith so many east Europeans still arriving in the United Kingdom, I often wonder, when I encounter groups of them on my walk to work, why do they not enter Germany looking for employment instead; I would have thought that there were more and better paid lightly skilled jobs in that country. Does Germany still manage to exclude them ?
john gerard
February 15th, 2012 3:01pm Report this comment@ Russell,
I with you on your post, but "Just 700,000 more to be got rid of"?
Try quadrupling it. There - that's better...we have at least several million people too many working in the public sector. The public sector needs to be shrunk dramatically.
Graham
February 15th, 2012 4:12pm Report this commentUntil we close the door on mass immigration & the "well it pays better than work" benefits system, we'll create jobs for the new arivals. We are such a stupid country! Someone above asks why the Easten Europeans don't go to German? It could be that Germans believe in & enjoy working.
Jannie Geldenhuys
February 15th, 2012 4:48pm Report this commentIt's the Pret a Manger phenomenon. Just 19% of Pret's employees are British. Why? Because the available Brits either don't want or cant do the jobs.
Sean O'Hare
February 15th, 2012 4:50pm Report this comment@daniel maris 1:07pm
We could realise a saving by delaying payment of the state pension until people give up work. That would also create an incentive for most over 65s not to work
Have you thought that perhaps the reason people over 65 are still working is that they can't afford not to? The idea that anyone can lead even a moderately comfortable existence of the state pension is laughable and Gordon Brown saw to it that our private pension arrangements were well and truly f**ked.
Jannie Geldenhuys
February 15th, 2012 5:21pm Report this comment@Sean O'Hare
Not that Gordon Brown cares about pensions. With his gold plated super-accruing MPs pension Gordon Brown will never know what it is to rely upon private pension provision. Nor will Clegg or Alexander, who seem to want those of us in the private sector to be stripped of any ability to save for their retirement.
daniel maris
February 15th, 2012 9:08pm Report this commentSean,
I fully appreciate the financial pressures that are leading older people to stay on in work. But that underlines that we should have decent pensions for people. In particular we should ensure the private sector have proper pension schemes.
Roy
February 16th, 2012 8:33am Report this commentHow can anyone say they are working toward full employment when they continue to import workers? For Gods sake how stupid can you get? Stop immigration and stop dole payments if they refuse to work when it is offered. Or if they refuse to make themselves employable. Nothing stirs the body into action more than hunger. How can the political masters be so dimwitted and fuddlebrained continuing on down this path? Strangely people like strong action even if it means some discomfort.
Matt Sisson
February 16th, 2012 9:59am Report this commentI'll agree to the calls for tighter immigration controls as soon as those calling for them admit that they're calling for more intervention by the state and greater regulation on the 'free-market'...
Rhoda Klapp
February 16th, 2012 10:33am Report this commentMatt Sisson, you are an idiot.
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