What is wrong with this graph the BBC have sough to include on their website re UK unemployment. I wonder for a start why it goes back to 1971, the statistics go back a lot further than that. Perhaps 1 million unemployed was a nice round number. I also note that it is not compared against UK population growth. Which is strange for the BBC, as I would imagine the last few years would see an even better performance as the population grew whilst unemployment fell.
However, the is miss is that the ONS data does not account for all the messing about with claimant statistics, for example moving people to disability benefits rather than pure unemployment, plus the current vocational/volunteer schemes which skew the numbers.
Without this, I can't even believe this as a rough guide, as since the 1980 recession governments' have had too much of a vested interest in fiddling these numbers.
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It'd be more useful to know how the ratio of vacancies to active jobseekers, and the proportion of GDP spent on welfare has changed really.
yup I agree, the focus on this number is bogus.
1980 was a different time in a very different UK, and the figures then were calculated not only on other criteria, but with large variations in activity of the relevant age groups. My guess is that the reality would be that the situation is now worse in real terms and likely to deteriorate further.
I'll try and find the report again, but it said the real figure, taking into account people put onto disability and training etc. when calculated in terms of how the figures used to be compiled, means that unemployment is over 5 million, and that is still conservative.
Why do the Tories not make such a big splash out of this?
yes, the headline number's just not comparable.
What we need is figures for the number of people taking part in gainful economic activity.
Don't forget NEETs who don't tend to show up anywhere.
It is depressing that unemployment didn't drop much after Labour came to power despite all the rhetoric and money thrown at various schemes. The number of claimants stayed roughly level all the way through the deficit-funded boom post 2001.
All that public money wasted, and for what?
In his 1996 book The State We're In Will Hutton supposed from estimates that the unemployment rate at that time represented around a third of the total number of 'economically inactive' in the UK.
In other words, the real unemployment rate including the NEETs, semi-retired and 'training scheme' participants is around 21% of the population.
*Gulp*
I wonder what the figure would be without all those thousands of (non) jobs in the Qangos and NGOs.
I work in a Quango and we fully expect unemployment to continue to rise as we are made redundant.
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