Richard Exell's Archive 
I am the TUC’s Senior Policy Officer covering social security, tax credits and labour market issues, including the debates about the European social model and labour market flexibility. I also represent the TUC on the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council.
Richard Exell
I have a post at Left Foot Forward, looking at today’s Report on Jobs from the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (the trade body for employment agencies). There was a “modest” increase in placements by employment agencies in January – but it’s the first improvement for four months, so it’s quite good news. Unfortunately, as I show, we’ll need much stronger growth before unemployment begins to fall.
Richard Exell
Before the recession, this country could take some pride in its jobs record – our unemployment rate was lower than the average for developed countries. Over the past four years, unemployment has risen, but it has in most countries – what is our relative position like? Well, new figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics provide a rather depressing answer to that question.
The BLS provides tables for the USA and nine other countries America compares itself with, one of which is the UK. The most usable figures are those that translate each set of national figures into US definitions. This means they’re not quite the figures we’re used to talking about in this country, but it’s the relative position we’re interested in here, so that doesn’t matter so much. Our unemployment rate is still a little lower than America’s and Italy’s, and significantly lower than France’s:(*)
Our unemployment rate is usually higher than Japan’s, but it is a little depressing to find ourselves lagging some of the other countries so badly. What’s much more interesting, though, is how these countries have coped with the impact of the global recession on their labour markets: (*)
Richard Exell
Today the Commons will ‘consider’ the amendments to the Welfare Reform Bill passed by the House of Lords Amendments. They are (courtesy of the Guardian):
These are all humane and necessary amendments. As Sue Marsh has pointed out, disabled people’s and carer’s organisations are united in opposing the Bill and it’s hard to find even individual disabled people who don’t support these amendments. Yesterday, the Children’s Commissioners for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland united to express their “deep concerns” at “the serious negative impact of the proposals in the Welfare Reform Bill on hundreds of thousands of children.” Shelter, the National Housing Federation, Homeless Link and Crisis have warned that the Bill will increase the number of homeless families.
Richard Exell
Today the Department for Work and Pensions published the latest statistics on the results of the Work Capability Assessment – the eligibility test for Employment and Support Allowance (which is replacing the old Incapacity Benefit). The newspapers today are full of stories about social security after the government’s defeat in the Lords, but I can’t find any mention of these figures.
Which is strange – these figures come out every three months and previously the tabloids have had a field day with them.
Richard Exell
People with memories of politics the seventies and eighties will have been taken back in time by today’s front page lead in the Daily Telegraph:
370,000 migrants on the dole
On the one hand, the paper plays up “concerns that the country has become a destination for ‘benefit tourists’”. Then, towards the end of the article, there is equal outrage at the fact that “90 percent of new jobs created in Britain over the past decade have gone to foreign -born workers.”
All those arguments where you ended up asking “are you angry because they have got jobs or because they haven’t?” It’s like being back in my twenties.
Richard Exell
The January labour market figures are terrible – the unemployment statistics look more and more like what we got used to in the 1980s. But, at first sight, it’s encouraging that the number of people in work went up a little. I’ve recorded a quick video to explain why this picture is misleading.
Richard Exell
I have a post at Left Foot Forward, looking at today’s labour market statistics. Unemployment is up 118,000 – if it continues rising at the rate it has in recent months, it will reach three million by this summer:
Richard Exell
I suppose a lot of people will have welcomed yesterday’s Impact Assessment of the Welfare Reform Bill by Dr Maggie Atkinson, the Children’s Commissioner for England simply because it adds to the case against the Bill; but the report raises some profound issues that shouldn’t be forgotten once the Bill has passed or been rejected.
That’s not to downplay the significance of the challenge to the Bill:
Richard Exell
I have a post at Left Foot Forward, looking at today’s Report on Jobs from the Recruitment and Employment Confederation. Their report, based on a survey of employment agencies, suggests that the labour market is performing really badly. Demand for staff is falling while the supply is rising and pay is stagnating. A real cause for concern is the fall in demand for temporary staff – which had been rising since the start of the recession. It looks as if businesses are very insecure and not willing even to take on temporary recruits.
Richard Exell
There, I bet you didn’t expect to read that headline! But the revelation that London Mayor Boris Johnson submitted comments to the consultation on Disability Living Allowance reform prompts an unusual response.
It isn’t just the political frisson that comes from knowing that BoJo’s submission had to be feretted out with a FoI application, it’s the fact that he criticises the plans to replace DLA with Personal Independence Payment for exactly the right reasons:
