As the prime minister boasted about the coalition's jobs record, the reality was heading in the opposite direction
In the corridors of Westminster, you may hear a faint cackle, halfway between a laugh and a groan. Trace where it comes from and you’ll reach the door marked “Opposition Economics Team”.
Members of Labour’s front bench must be rueful when they look at today’s employment figures. They cover March to May, the quarter when the election took place and show that, as the prime minister boasted to voters about the strongest job creation record in the western world, so the reality was suddenly heading in the opposite direction.
Compared with the previous quarter, employment is down 67,000, the first fall for more than two years. The number unemployed has risen 15,000 (14,000 of that is an increase in the number of unemployed women) and the ‘adjusted’ Claimant Count – which takes account of the introduction of Universal Credit – for June is up 7,000 on the May figure.
If we look at different types of employment, compared with last month, the number of employees working full-time fell (7,000), the number of employees working part-time fell (21,000), the number of self-employed people working full-time fell (47,000) and even the number of temporary employees fell (by 9,000). Only the number of part-time self-employed people grew (17,000), which is hardly reassuring.
For the first time in over a year, the total number of hours worked in the economy has fallen for two months running:
Total hours worked (click to zoom)
And the ratio of the number of job vacancies to the number of unemployed people has risen for two months running, for the first time in over two years:
Vacancies and unemployment
It’s important not to get carried away about these changes, which are quite small. The ONS release includes a note warning that “in general, changes in the numbers (and especially the rates) reported in this statistical bulletin, between 3 month periods are small, and are not usually greater than the level that is explainable by sampling variability”.
For instance, employment fell 67,000 over the quarter, but sampling variability for quarterly changes in this measure is plus or minus 142,000. The employment rate went up 0.1 points, but the sampling variability for changes in this measure is plus or minus 0.2 points.
The combination of all these changes does suggest that something real is happening. But even if the figures are right it could be a real blip. Labour market statistics can be volatile these days:
Quarterly changes in employment levels
Employment growth was briefly negative at the start of 2013, for instance, but it started to grow again a few months later.
There’s a certain symmetry to the employment and pay figures. For a couple of years we’ve been worried that the jobs recovery has happened at the same time as earnings have fallen in real terms. Today’s figures showed average weekly earnings being 3.2 per cent up on a year previously; in May, the Consumer Price Index stood at 0.1 per cent and the Retail Price Index at 1.0 per cent.
If we had a strong recovery we should expect to see employment and pay both improving. It seems we are stuck in a rut where the best we can manage is one or the other. The risk now is that renewed austerity may return us to the experience of 2010-12, when the UK nearly entered a double-dip recession, in which case it’s the positives in today’s figures that will seem like a blip.
Richard Exell is senior policy officer at the TUC. Follow him on Twitter
13 Responses to “The jobs figures: even if it’s a blip, it’s a worrying one”
stevep
Funny that, no one on the right mentions the two recessions and the loss of our triple-A credit rating, all on the Tory-led watch. When Labour left power in 2010, the economy was growing. What happened?
Five years of hard-right dogma killed our economy, that`s what happened. All for party political gain.
Tory claims to have generated a barely-spluttering economic upturn are disingenuous, because previously dropping the economy into recession means they have a low point to start their wild claims from. It`s hokum.
It`s telling that we refer to the labour “Market”, as if the value of human beings rests on being bought or sold like cattle.
Rather than the current society which sees human beings as a conduit to greater profit for the few, we could contribute our labour in a more dignified and telling way to a society that respected human endeavour and contributions to the whole.
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Torybushhug
Have you ever had an original thought, this is standard cookie cutter populist bile.
1) Labour went on a vast unsustainable spending spree in it’s final months. Of course this gives a temporary illusory ‘growth’. The most feeble minded simplistic political approach, any fool would think of this knee jerk reaction.
2) From 2010 Europe hit the brakes and went into serious decline. Of course they stopped buying from us and so of course this affected us, dohhh! Many feel it a miracle we were not sucked down with them and went onto to experience the European unemployment levels
3) This ‘killed economy’ attracted more EU migrants than any other, now I wonder how this could be given your suggestion it’s so bad here, mmmm, stretttchhhh that brain
4) So only a few profit do they? Lefty myth number 4 rears it’s head. If so we would not be in the midst of long term retail and car sales boom. Our credit is less than 1/3rd of total assets to include main residence (of course we have higher debt than Germans because we use property as an investment – yes our main home and then one day downsize, whereas Germans are more conformist so use pensions).
If only a few profited, the world migrants would be headed to and staying in France et al, there would be no point coming to this life of penury in the UK
You must live a very sheltered life. I only today dealt with an Albanian here just a few years, started with nothing now owns two houses and has opened a fried chicken shop taking £17k – £18k per week. Him and many like him tell me this is the land where anyone can make their dream a reality.
I am dealing with a Nigerian chap that drives an Audi A4 convertible and a RangeRover Sport, he’s only been here 5 years and owns a home and is getting a buy to let. His Mrs is a cleaner but sitting law exams. They are typical of many I meet, not highly qualified, but just through a little hard work are making good lives.
Come visit me, I will show you the real world.
Jacko
“It`s telling that we refer to the labour ‘Market’, as if the value of human beings rests on being bought or sold like cattle.”
Just to clarify. We call it the ‘labour market’ because it refers to the demand and supply dynamics of human labour, not the supply of the humans themselves. Secondly, the labour is hired only, it is not owned.
stevep
Call it what you like, pedant, but if a person is not born into wealth or land, they have no other choice other than to hire themselves out as labour to those who have, in order to survive. They are therefore, to all intents and purpose, owned by the landed and wealthy. Forced labour, Indentured slavery or wage slavery, Take your pick.
stevep
Here`s a thought, not very original, I grant you: ” The world is what you make it”. There, how`s that! Not bad going, eh.
The world I want to create is one of fairness, decency and respect for all human beings and nature. A world in which we don`t have to backstab, arselick and destroy the planet to make a living. A world where dignity is a byword.
You won`t find such a world on the right of the political spectrum, only greed, slavery and power. That`s why, in the absence of anything better in politics, I gravitate to the left, where there is at least a little discussion and consensus on my ideals.
The “real” world, as you put it,– it`s what you make it.