Wednesday, Mar 17, 2010
When is unemployment not unemployment.. ?
BBC News: UK unemployment records further fall
To me, unemployment is people who want to work, but can't or simply don't want to... however due to some nice number diddling the government has heralded "lower unemployment", despite more people becoming economically inactive.
The number of people unemployed in the UK has fallen again, leaving the jobless rate at 7.8%, figures show.
Total unemployment stood at 2.45 million for the three months to January, down 33,000 on the figure for the previous three months.
But long-term unemployment, covering those out of work for more than a year, rose by 61,000 to 687,000.
The number of people claiming Jobseeker's Allowance fell by 32,300 to 1.59 million in February.
Posted by exiges @ 12:18 PM (1059 views) Add Comment
13 Comments
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1. jackas said...
For every person that became employed, 5 people left the work force.
Doublespeak.
2. estrader said...
Different country but no doubt, the same tactics:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ulu3SCAmeBA
3. bystander said...
@jackass - absolutely, but I wonder how many of the general public will actually look past these numbers, look at the number of students who won't get a place at university this year and become added to the number of economically inactive, or heaven forbid join the dole and therefore add to the unemployed. This of course will happen after the GE so either GB and Nuliebor will have got back in and the subterfuge will have worked or its someone else's problem. The markets rose on this news, Jeez those guys will party at the opening of a bag of crisps. They really are looking for diamonds in GB's sh1te. It is painfully obvious that most of the economic growth and reduced unemployment has come from spin, spin and statistics, not mention a very healthy dollop of free money to those who qualify - the banks, the markets and their mates.
4. cornishman said...
In the past, anyone in their late 40s or their 50s who was unemployed would be likely to keep registering as unemployed because it meant that they got credits that counted towards their state pension (they needed 40 years' worth of stamps to get a full pension).
Gordon Brown has just changed this so that only 30 years' worth of stamps are needed to get a full state pension.
So now, anyone with 30 years contributions who has been unemployed for more than 26 weeks and who has some savings or a working spouse, may as well stop bothering to sign on because they will get nothing out of it at all.
They disappear from the headline unemployment number. But they are still unemployed.
5. timmy t said...
They can fudge the numbers but they can't hide the consequences.
6. Paranoia Blue said...
timmyt @5
Excellent comment, mate. I've quoted you before, and most probably, will again. ATB
7. estrader said...
@3 bystander "The markets rose on this news"
NO!...NO!...NO!
Let me make this perfectly clear - With the exclusion of natural disasters, the ‘NEWS’ does not move the markets. It may at times explain very minor rallies and reactions but NOT the trend. This is not an opinion it is a fact and you would be wise to accept it. Only fools, amateurs and ‘the public’ trade the ‘NEWS’ and this why they are baffled by its movements. This is still a bull market and as far as I can tell, nothing is getting in its way.
8. Mr Cobblepot said...
Spot on Cornishman, in fact I am one of those people, though I havent quite got may full 30 years in. I decided that because the governement will continue to increase the pension age, I am more likely to die long before ever reaching retirement, therefore I no longer sign on for my pension stamp.
And another thing, all this clap trap about us living longer is nothing more than fudging statisics, when they say we are living longer, they fail to point out that this mostly due to in an increase in infant mortalitaly rates. Lets face it we all know of more people who have died either before or just after they've collected their pensions, than people who are in there 70's and 80's....think about it.
9. the number cruncher said...
I do a lot of work with the voluntary sector and I have had a lot of phone calls from 'training providers' trying to place young unemployed - the government have opened up the taps on training schemes to reduce youth unemployment. They have also used their power to focus national lottery money and local government on getting the young unemployed total down. They really are throwing the kitchen sink at it before the election. The amount of effort will have a real impact on unemployment and some of the training provisions are generous and could result in positive outcomes. But I doubt that generosity will still be there after the election.
10. rumble said...
"They really are throwing the kitchen sink at it before the election." -- the current situation could've been part of Atlas Shrugged.
11. the number cruncher said...
Rubmle I am afraid Ayn Rand's philosophy is something I detest - she is plain selfish and so are those that subscribe to her wicked philosophy. She maps out a moral system that that makes a straw man argument to promote greed and justifies extreme wealth division. The rich are most certainly not superstars and society could well do without our so called movers and shakers - good riddance to the lot of them! Most of the people who are creative and invent our future are not the economic elite. The people who make the world work are not massively paid and those that are well paid are the successful monopolists of other people ideas and hard work and the resources that this earth provides free of charge.
Man is not a heroic being and individual happiness is not our prime moral objective. That is just sick and selfish.
12. 51ck-6-51x said...
No Cruncher said, "Man is not a heroic being and individual happiness is not our prime moral objective."
Hmm, I believe that you are only able to perceive an external event when it has an effect on your biological system; if you consider your prime moral objective as not selfish then you must measure the external effect and map it to something you can perceive (i.e. make extra links in the chain of cause and effect such that there is an effect on your biological system) which, therefore, returns the moral objective to something selfish. QED
For example:
Your moral objective is to help the less fortunate.
So you first have a measure of misfortune, and a measure of how one has helped another (maybe you ask them, maybe its a statistic). When you have found someone fitting the first measure (they have no food) you act (feed them or give them farming equipment and seed) then at some later time you assess the second measure (they thank you from the bottom of their heart) this then has an effect on you (you feel happy / proud / less sad / a tug on the bottom of your stomach / whatever) - this is the final measure, and the only one you can truly comprehend, hence this is the only measure you can really seek to maximise (or minimise) ergo the action, in the end is selfish.
However hard you try to get away from it, you are the subject, and everything else is the object, in all measures you make.
13. down wave said...
Almost all of the job vacancies in the south west are for 16 hour contracts, almost every employer
is using this scam to employ people, so as to avoid holiday pay, sickness pay, pension and so on.
So it takes two people to fill one job.