Unemployment

Really quick post. I saw a lot of government ministers today giving themselves massive pats on the back because of our brilliant unemployment figures. Down 50,000 they say!

That may be the case but we need to put this into perspective. This is the graph from today’s ONS report and the bit circled in red is the bit they are all getting over-excited about:

UK unemployment (source ONS)

While any decrease in the rate of unemployment is good, this is way too slow, especially considering that many of the extra jobs seem to be coming from people moving from previous full-time employed to now part-time employed.

It really does take an incumbent government to think that graph looks like anything other than a disaster.

I’m not going to be popping the champagne just yet.

RedEaredRabbit