Just under a fifth of the coalition's 'million new jobs' are the result of the reclasification of further education and sixth form college teachers as private sector employees.
David Cameron likes to boast that his government has created over a million private sector jobs since 2010.
The Prime Minister has made the claim in the commons during PMQs, and yesterday it was once again made by chairman of the Conservative party Grant Shapps in an article entitled ‘Five simple messages for the doorstep this Christmas‘.
“We are cutting taxes for British businesses, helping to create jobs. Overall, 1.1 million more people are now working compared to the election,” Shapps boasted, accompanying his post with the following graph:
The first thing one notices about the graph is the large jump in private sector jobs seemingly created in April 2012, just short of two years after the coalition came to office. Perhaps on seeing this graph you, like me, were wondering what accounted for this encouraging surge in private sector employment last year. What innovative (and clearly successful) policy did the coalition introduce which created so many jobs so quickly?
They didn’t, is the answer, because the large increase in private sector employment seen in April 2012 was actually nothing of the sort, but rather was due to the reclasification of 196,000 public sector jobs to private sector ones. In reality, just under a fifth of the coalition’s ‘million new jobs’ are actually the result of the reclasification of further education and sixth form college teachers as private sector employees.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) made this clear last year when it said:
“These educational bodies employed 196,000 people in March 2012 and the reclassification therefore results in a large fall in public sector employment and a corresponding large increase in private sector employment between March and June 2012.”
Claiming the government has created a ‘million new jobs’ relies on a completely dishonest interpretation of the figures. Especially making the same claim repeatedly even after it’s been pointed out as wrong by no less than the ONS.
And this from a party which in opposition regularly accused Labour of twisting the statistics to suit its own agenda.
19 Responses to “The Tory sleight of hand over ‘1.1 million more’ private sector jobs”
Sparky
If there really was a vast body of underground left wing supporters just waiting in the wings to sweep a left party to power, then parties would be fighting over themselves to offer those policies. The Labour Party doesn’t offer them because they realised in the 1990s that such policies are so niche that they make whoever offers them unelectable. That’s why they moved over to the right. It’s simply supply and demand.
Governments have always manipulated statistics to suit their ends. That fact is accepted by everyone and is factored in by financial markets in their reaction to economic news. What matters therefore in trying to establish the truth of the underlying trend of economic statistics is how markets react to economic news. I know you probably loathe everything to do with financial markets, thinking that it’s all Gordon Gekko and champagne lunches, but out in the real world it’s market reaction to news that drives capital inflows, exchange rates, investment and hedging decisions by business.
Some of the comments on this page really are infantile: to say something like ‘consumer confidence will dive in January because of Christmas credit card bills’ demonstrates no understanding of how the stats are compiled or how they analysed.
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TM
Yeah, you’ve got a point. I have actually wondered that many times. You agree that in all healthy democracies there has to be effective opposition? That’s the point I am trying to make. Not everything the Right say is wrong, nor everything the Left say is right, but at the moment we seem to be a little out of balance. Democracy is compromise, not steamrollering people with opposing views.
Andrew Wood
If what you say is true, you seem to miss the point that the 196,000 public sector workers quoted were not, therefore, put out of work. You can’t “mathematically” reduce the number of jobs created in the private sector due to this revelation, without allowing for a corresponding increase in jobs in the public sector. Either there was movement of the workforce or there wasn’t.
Fabian Vanham
Not so much ‘manipulate’ as deliberately misinterpret. Saying that everybody lies doesn’t mean it’s okay to do so, that’s effectively trying to legitimise a race to the bottom in integrity.
You talk as if accurate, independent statistical data isn’t available, which is simply untrue.