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Richard Exell

Richard Exell

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.

  • Labour market

    Explaining the fall in women’s economic inactivity

    16th March 2012 — Filed under: Labour market

    Richard Exell Richard Exell

    One of the Department for Work and Pensions’ claims about Wednesday’s labour market statistics struck me as a little strange:

    The number of women in work rose 10,000 this quarter to 13.5 million. Female unemployment also rose because more women are entering the labour market having previously been inactive.

    This makes the increase in women’s unemployment sound like it’s really a good thing, a sign that the labour market is working well, which didn’t sound right. And it isn’t. In fact, the most likely reason for this shift is the gradual rise in women’s state retirement age. 

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  • Labour market

    Recent employment data are positive but it is too soon to say they will continue to get better

    15th March 2012 — Filed under: Labour market

    Richard Exell Richard Exell

    I have a post at Left Foot Forward, looking at yesterday’s employment figures. I argue that the DWP’s press release spun them as better than they were. The release uses a rather dubious move to play down the significance of the 28,000 increase in unemployment and the public sector employment figures show that last year public sector employment fell 270,000 while private sector employment only rose 226,000. The increase in unemployment is entirely accounted for by a rise in part-time employment: the number of people in full-time jobs actually fell. I’m especially cautious because we saw an improvement like this a year ago but it petered out in the second half of 2011 – I argue we should wait a few more months before we throw out hats in the air.

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  • Economics

    The road to recovery is much longer than it needs to be

    13th March 2012 — Filed under: Economics

    Richard Exell Richard Exell

    The OECD’s latest Composite Leading Indicators tell us two things; firstly that the world economy is possibly on the verge of a tentative recovery. Second, that we could learn a lot from the USA.  Let’s start with the good news: the Organisation’s verdict for the OECD as a whole is that these monthly indicators, specifically chosen to give us an idea of when economies are at a turning point, “continue pointing to a positive change in momentum”. The USA and Japan are leading this trend, but

    stronger, albeit tentative, signals are beginning to emerge within all other major OECD economies and the Euro area as a whole.

    What about the impact of austerity?  

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  • Economics

    Is manufacturing able to lead us out of recession?

    9th March 2012 — Filed under: Economics

    Richard Exell Richard Exell

    Manufacturing output is disappointingly low and has been for over a year. Today’s figures for output in the production industries are genuinely disappointing. I wouldn’t emphasise the disastrous Index of Production results (3.8 points down from Jsanuary 2011) which are quite erratic, so much as the Index of Manufacturing. This is positive (a 0.3 point gain on 12 montyhs ago) but terribly feeble – especially for what is supposed to be one of the bright spots of the recovery.

    Manufacturing output has hardly risen the first quarter of 2011 and the Index of Manufacturing, at 95.8, is still 8.2 points below the level it had reached in January 2008, on the eve of the recession. It is now four years since then, if you take the average growth rate in the four years up to January 2008 and project it forwards, we are now 11 points below the level we might have otherwise expected to reach:

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  • Society & Welfare

    More bad news for unemployed people

    8th March 2012 — Filed under: Society & Welfare

    Richard Exell Richard Exell

    A couple of years ago the TUC published The Costs of Unemployment, a briefing on the price paid for unemployment by individual unemployed people and society as a whole. After I read today’s General Lifestyle Survey, 2010 I realised we’ll need a new edition with a couple of extra sections. (If you want more details than are in the Survey itself, the Excel files linked to it are well worth studying.)

    First, there’s new data showing unemployed people are more likely to smoke:

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  • Labour market

    The jobs market’s uncertain future

    8th March 2012 — Filed under: Labour market

    Richard Exell Richard Exell

    I have a post at Left Foot Forward, looking at yesterday’s Report on Jobs. On the whole, the news is good, with an increase in permanent placements by employment agencies, who also report more permanent job vacancies. But the scale of the improvement is still very small and the  agencies say that pay for permanent jobs fell last month, for the first time in more than two years. Taken with other economic news over the past fortnight the prospects for employment are very hard to call, but it looks like a repeat of last year’s pattern: a recovery in the first months the year, falling off in the second hald.

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  • Public services

    Why aren’t ministers making more of an NHS success?

    7th March 2012 — Filed under: Public services

    Richard Exell Richard Exell

    The Department of Health’s new figures for waiting times for diagnostic tests really make quite encouraging reading. These are the tests (like audiology or MRI scans) a consultant will book for you to help their diagnosis and it can be important that you don’t have to wait a long time for them. And the latest figures are good: nowadays, practically no-one has to wait a year for these tests and there are far fewer people waiting 6 or 13 weeks:

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  • Economic Reports

    Economic Report # 2

    6th March 2012 — Filed under: Economic Reports, Economics

    Richard Exell Richard Exell

    The TUC’s 2nd Economic Report reports on the most recent key economic data and has an extended discussion of investment. Investment rates are low and companies currently hold £724 billion in case – equivalent to around half of all GDP. The Report argues for policies to unlock this resource including a reversal of the cuts in public sector investment, credit easing and a state investment bank.

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  • Society & Welfare

    Switching from RPI to CPI is even more of a disadvantage than we thought

    2nd March 2012 — Filed under: Society & Welfare

    Richard Exell Richard Exell

    Pensioners, carers, disabled and unemployed people are losing even more from changes to the way inflation is calculated than we thought. Unions have been complaining about this change continually since it was first announced just after the general election, but it turns out that we haven’t been making enough fuss: some of the poorest people in the country are going to be losing twice as much as we thought.

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  • Economic Reports

    Labour Market Report #23

    1st March 2012 — Filed under: Economic Reports, Labour market

    Richard Exell Richard Exell

    Labour Market Report number 23, looking at the February Labour Market Statistics is now available at the TUC website. In it we report on the UK’s comparatively poor unemployment performance since the recession, the massive 85 per cent increase in involuntary part-time employment and record bad figures for women and young people.

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