Things Are Never So Bad...........
Wednesday, December 14, 2011 at 10:27AM
“Things are never so bad they can’t be made worse” Humphrey Bogart
UK employment statistics for August to October 2011 were released this morning and they make pretty glum reading.
- The employment rate for those aged from 16 to 64 was 70.3 per cent, down 0.2 on the quarter
- There were 29.11 million people in employment aged 16 and over, down 63,000 on the quarter. The number of people employed in the public sector fell by 67,000 on the quarter to reach 5.99million. The number of people employed in the private sector rose by 5,000 on the quarter to reach 23.12 million.
- The unemployment rate was 8.3 per cent of the economically active population, up 0.4 on the quarter. There were 2.64 million unemployed people, up 128,000 on the quarter. The unemployment rate is the highest since 1996 and the number of unemployed people is the highest since 1994.
- The inactivity rate for those aged from 16 to 64 was 23.2 per cent, down 0.1 on the quarter. There were 9.33 million economically inactive people aged from 16 to 64, down 54,000 on the quarter.
- Total pay (including bonuses) rose by 2.0 per cent on a year earlier, down 0.3 on the three months to September 2011(with both the private and public sectors showing lower pay growth).
- Regular pay (excluding bonuses) rose by 1.8 per cent on a year earlier, up 0.1 on the three months to September 2011.
This though, is the stand out chart in the ONS release
Reader Comments (2)
thank heavens for the immigrants, who'd do all the work otherwise? we probably need to encourage a lot of UK-born to emigrate and become a burden on someone else's welfare state.
......... not a bad call; except the kids who are heading off to Canada, Australia and the US are exactly the ones we need to stay but I take your point.