Thursday, Jul 16, 2009
Labour won't take their pain...
Market Oracle: UK Unemployment Record Rise, a Jobless Debt Fuelled Economic Recovery?
''...the mainstream press focus has been on the headline unemployment data and the benefits claimant count, however the real number of unemployed stands far higher when taking into account all those of working age (16 to 64) as illustrated below with the total at 7.915 million...''
Posted by hpwatcher @ 05:44 AM (693 views) Add Comment
11 Comments
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1. flashman said...
“however the real number of unemployed (7.15 million) stands far higher when taking into account all those of working age (16 to 64)”
This article lifts its figures wholesale from the National Statistics office but it implies that some insight has gone into acquiring the 'real' number of 7.15 million unemployed
My wife does not work and nor does my sister or my brothers wife. They do not want to work but they are pretty far from economically inactive. I know many people who have happily taken early retirement and several people who are taking a sabbatical from work. Adding these people to an unemployed statistic makes no sense. The same goes for the disabled, people in jail, people travelling the world, the idle rich, the idle poor, students, househusbands and housewives
The official statistics are flawed but they are more useful than this 7.15 million number
2. flashman said...
sorry, I meant 7.915
3. paul said...
Will Hutton suggested in "The State We're In" (1996) that the real rate of unemployed (or economically inactive) is roughly three times the unemployment rate at any given time.
He's still not far off the mark according to Market Oracle.
4. flashman said...
paul: The Will Hutton thing infers that a very high proportion of the economically inactive rejoin the workforce in boom times. i.e if the unemployment number is 1 million then the economically inactive number reduces from 7 million to 3 million. If it is true then 4 million of the currently inactive don't really want to be. Thats a lot of frustrated people
5. icarus said...
Flashman - and why count only those aged 15-64 as economically active or inactive? There are many fit people over 65. Some racehorse trainers are in their 70s (one gets up before 4am and works 10-12-hour days, others have strings of 100+ horses) and at least one is in his 80s. The thing that dies at age 64 or younger is the will to work for somebody else.
6. flashman said...
icarus: true enough. God knows how this demographics thing will pan out. We cant afford to support the retired, so they've got to carry on working....but there wont be a any jobs for most of them. I think the highly skilled older folks will be asked to work until they drop and the less skilled older folk will cause the government to consider a euthanasia bill
7. icarus said...
flashman - nor can we afford......better stop there or we'll be into a different subject (the words 'bank bailouts' and 'military', especially with regard to the US, spring to mind).
8. Hpwatcher said...
Governments have been hiding the real unemployment figures for years.
9. shipbuilder said...
The truth, of course, is that we can afford to support the retired and indeed all of us could work shorter hours, just not under our current system, where increases in productivity go into a few pockets rather than increasing the 'leisure' time of all of us. It's just whether we choose to do things that way.
10. shipbuilder said...
[img]http://idlenest.freehostia.com/images/race.gif[/img]
11. shipbuilder said...
I guess that didn't work.