Why aren’t more people unemployed?

An unfamiliar noise floats over the town; an insistent, one-note metallic drone. Tracked to its source, it turns out to come from a sawmill in a hidden wooded valley a quarter of a mile from my house. Abandoned for the past year, the mill has suddenly come back to life. It is emitting great plumes of steam as well as a multi-decibel industrial racket. And men are working there — I can see only two or three, but still they constitute another little piece of the great employment puzzle.

An uptick in demand for sawn timber matches reports of increased levels of activity in the construction and housebuilding sector. Sure enough, quarter of a mile in another direction, a development of stone-built terraced houses that was an abandoned wasteland for three years until last autumn, amid rumours of several changes of ownership, has also come back to life. The houses are up to first-floor level; several trades are busy on site. Yet just the other side of the churchyard stands a boarded-up pub. A little further on are at least four shops that have closed since Christmas. And I’ve rarely seen a customer in the shiny new ‘Curry in a Hurry’ takeaway, though its aromas are warmly enticing.

As I often do in my Any Other Business column, I’m describing my home town of Helmsley in north Yorkshire. But I could be describing any English provincial town or suburb. The state of the national economy is encapsulated in statistics boiled down from tax and benefits data and business surveys, but observation of everyday activity where you live is just as good a guide. Right now, we can all observe a faltering, partial recovery after an extended downturn in which scarcity of credit has left businesses unwilling to invest, below-inflation wage rises have left consumers unwilling to spend, and confidence is traumatised everywhere.