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.
Anjum Klair
So, according to DWP minister Maria Miller, there is no shortage of jobs.
Every month I report on the latest unemployment data, the number of people claiming JSA and the number of vacancies in each Local Authority. The last set of data showed that there are as many as 20 people chasing the one vacancy in some areas, in Lewisham there are almost thirty five dole claimants chasing each vacancy.
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: (*)
Paul Sellers
It has not been widely reported, but in last night’s keynote speech Mervyn King argued that the economy has been held back by a combination of high inflation and weak wages growth. Take note, ye pay-rise naysayers!
King’s argument was that inflation had been kept high by the rise in VAT, higher import prices and soaring energy costs.
“The consequence has been a ferocious squeeze in the purchasing power of take home pay. That led to a fall in consumer spending which accounted for much of the weakness in growth in 2011″
Nicola Smith
Defending his benefit cap on the Today programme this morning Iain Duncan Smith claimed that those who ‘do the right thing’ and move into work will not be penalised. The direct implication of this is that those who are currently unemployed are failing to take his advice and act in a morally correct manner – if they did, they’d all have jobs.
This view is an insult to the 2.68 million people who are unemployed and looking for work. There are 463,000 jobs available in the economy (down 18,000 on last year and down 34% on pre-recession levels).* There are over one million more unemployed people looking for employment than there were four years ago. The ratio of unemployed people to jobs currently 5.8. Factor in the far from perfect match between the geographical locations (see Anjum’s regular round up of the areas of the UK where there are as many as 32 claimants for every available post) and skills profiles of jobs and claimants, and that family committments mean the hours of work offered won’t fit with the caring responsibilities of every unemployed worker, and the picture becomes even bleaker. It is simply not feasible for everyone who is out of work to find employment.
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.
Paul Sellers
The Chancellor has asked the public sector pay review bodies to look at how public sector pay can be made “more responsive to local labour markets.”* Most people, including trade unionists, would say that it is fairest to pay people for what they do, not where they live.
Perhaps the Chancellor is just toying with the idea of tweaking around the edges of the public sector pay scales. Certainly to push for full localisation would be foolhardy, as it would cause significant detrimental economic side effects and would be likely to lead to the Government having much less control over the public sector pay bill.
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:
Anjum Klair
The unemployment data released today shows that Lewisham is the hardest place in Great Britain to find a job. In Lewisham there are almost thirty five dole claimants chasing each vacancy. Since we have been reporting on employment blackspots (March 2011), Lewisham has been in the top 10 employment blackspots every month.
