Unemployment Down

[exiges]

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=12

The employment rate for those aged from 16 to 64 for the three months to August 2010 was 70.7 per cent, up 0.2 on the quarter. The number of people in employment aged 16 and over increased by 178,000 on the quarter to reach 29.16 million. Employment is up 241,000 on the year but is 270,000 lower than two years previously.

The number of men in employment increased by 132,000 on the quarter, to reach 15.62 million, while the number of women in employment increased by 46,000 on the quarter to reach 13.54 million. The quarterly increase in total employment was mainly driven by part-time workers, which increased by 143,000 on the quarter to reach 7.96 million, the highest figure since comparable records began in 1992. There were 1.14 million employees and self-employed people working part-time because they could not find a full-time job. This is the highest figure since comparable records began in 1992 and is up 65,000 on the quarter. The number of full-time workers increased by 35,000 on the quarter to reach 21.20 million.

The inactivity rate for those aged from 16 to 64 for the three months to August 2010 was 23.2 per cent, down 0.2 on the quarter. The number of inactive people aged from 16 to 64 fell by 66,000 over the quarter to reach 9.28 million. The number of people not active in the labour market because they were students fell by 47,000, to reach 2.21 million. The number of economically inactive people looking after the family or home fell by 44,000, to reach 2.28 million, the lowest figure since comparable records began in 1993.

The unemployment rate for the three months to August 2010 was 7.7 per cent, down 0.1 on the quarter. The number of unemployed people fell by 20,000 over the quarter to reach 2.45 million. Male unemployment fell by 56,000 on the quarter to reach 1.44 million but female unemployment increased by 36,000 on the quarter to reach 1.01 million.

The number of people claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance (the claimant count) increased by 5,300 between August and September 2010 to reach 1.47 million. This is the second consecutive monthly increase in the number of claimants. The increase in the total claimant count was mainly due to a rise of 4,200 in the number of female claimants to reach 431,000. The number of male claimants increased by 1,100 to reach 1.04 million.

The number of vacancies for the three months to September 2010 was 459,000, down 30,000 over the quarter. The sector showing the largest quarterly fall was education where the number of vacancies fell by 17,000 to reach 32,000.

The earnings annual growth rate for total pay (including bonuses) was 1.7 per cent for the three months to August 2010, up from 1.3 per cent for the three months to July. The earnings annual growth rate for regular pay (excluding bonuses) was 2.0 per cent for the three months to August 2010, up from 1.6 per cent for the three months to July.

Edited October 13, 2010 by exiges

[moonriver]

Bloomberg's headline for this ...

U.K. Jobless Benefit Claims Rise by Most in Eight Months; Confidence Drops

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-13/u-k-jobless-benefit-claims-rose-by-the-most-in-eight-months-in-september.html

U.K. unemployment claims climbed for a second month in September with the biggest increase in eight months, a sign the economy is losing momentum.

Jobless benefit claims rose by 5,300 from the previous month to 1.473 million, the Office for National Statistics said today in London. That exceeded the median forecast of 23 economists for an increase of 4,500. Overall unemployment in the quarter through August fell by 20,000 to 2.45 million, led by 16 to 17 year-old people.

U.K. consumer confidence fell in September to an 18-month low as Britons braced themselves for finance minister George Osborne’s spending cuts, Nationwide Building Society said today. Recent data signaled economic growth slowed in the third quarter and Bank of England policy maker David Miles said yesterday officials must not tighten policy too soon.

“There are big shocks ahead,” Brian Hilliard, director of economic research at Societe Generale SA in London and a former central bank official, said in an interview. “Unemployment is still on a rising trend. The fall in consumer confidence was a big one today and companies are looking ahead and don’t like what they see.”

The pound was little changed after the release at $1.5881 as of 9:40 a.m. in London. The yield on the benchmark two-year government bond was up 3 basis points today at 0.648 percent.

ILO Rate

The claimant-count unemployment rate stayed at 4.5 percent in September, the statistics office said. The unemployment rate in the quarter through August measured by International Labour Organization methods slipped to 7.7 percent, the lowest since the three months through May 2009. Unemployment would have risen if it excluded 16 to 17 year olds, officials said.

The unemployment rate compares with 10.1 percent in the euro region, 9.6 percent in the U.S. and 5.1 percent in Japan, the statistics office said.

Alliance Boots Ltd., owner of the U.K.’s largest drugstore chain, said on Oct. 4 that it will spend three years improving efficiency and cutting around 900 jobs. London’s financial services industry may freeze new hiring next year on concern about greater regulation and a slowing economic recovery, the Centre for Economics & Business Research Ltd. said on Oct. 6.

Employment increased in the quarter through August by 178,000, taking the total of people in work to 29.16 million, the statistics office said. That was the highest since the first quarter of 2009.

The Bank of England left its benchmark interest rate at a record low of 0.5 percent this month and its bond-purchase plan at 200 billion pounds ($316 billion).

Growth Slowdown

Recent economic data shows that the recovery may be weakening. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors said yesterday that a gauge of house prices fell to a 16-month low in September and the British Retail Consortium said annual same- store sales growth weakened last month.

The U.K. Treasury’s fiscal watchdog predicts the loss of half a million jobs in the public sector by April 2015 due to the government budget squeeze. Unions representing more than 6 million workers voted in September to coordinate industrial action in a campaign to stop the cuts. Osborne will reveal details of the spending reductions on Oct. 20.

Weekly pay including bonuses rose 1.7 percent in the three months through August from a year earlier, the statistics office said. Excluding bonuses, pay increased by 2 percent.

[Realistbear]

BBC spin would go something like this:

Strong recovery allows more people to just work part time

[pathfinder]

2 years ago 74k joint income - disposable income 40k, 20-30k went on overpayments

now joint income 11.8k fulltime, one unemployed - disposable income £60 a month (every day I think thank goodness I overpaid). Employment figures matter little if part time is assumed to be working in a high cost of living environment.

Good Bye Retail.

[singlemalt]

Seems like lots of 'under-employed'.

[council dweller]

2 years ago 74k joint income - disposable income 40k, 20-30k went on overpayments

now joint income 11.8k fulltime, one unemployed - disposable income £60 a month (every day I think thank goodness I overpaid). Employment figures matter little if part time is assumed to be working in a high cost of living environment.

Good Bye Retail.

Good God!! That's quiet some fall.

Maybe from now we'll see two types of people; the prepared and the unprepared...

[pathfinder]

Good God!! That's quiet some fall.

Maybe from now we'll see two types of people; the prepared and the unprepared...

Next step will be both working 3 days a week, £200 overpayments a month and a lot of dancing, beer, and cycling.

My missus used to think I was mad calculating for 12k salary survival, now its a reality OO. If anyone is jobless take a look at being a support worker if you can stomach 12k a year. They take on people without a background in care. Saved our ass that is for sure.

[Fool's Gold]

If you work 16 hours a week or more, you cannot sign on and thus are classed as employed.

I work 16 hours a week on minimum wage. That's not even £100 I receive.

I am expected to live on less than £100 a week and the government feels it can dictate that I am to use my savings for the rest of my living expenses,

You can see that I have little sympathy for anyone losing child benefit and also don't understand why the government can dictate what I am to with my savings yet supports the idiots that got us into this mess. I hate this country.

[council dweller]

Next step will be both working 3 days a week, £200 overpayments a month and a lot of dancing, beer, and cycling.

My missus used to think I was mad calculating for 12k salary survival, now its a reality OO. If anyone is jobless take a look at being a support worker if you can stomach 12k a year. They take on people without a background in care. Saved our ass that is for sure.

Are you a 'pathfinder' as in helping us find a path through poverty or is it something to do with dropping bombs on people!?

I'm already on 16.5 and enjoying it. The wife is an HCA at a large hospital, started in January after 5 years of doing pretty much nothing.

Are you keeping an eye on the Universal Credit thing to be announced next week? Sounds like a couple both working part-time would get it though PAYE, maybe not means tested either.

[council dweller]

If you work 16 hours a week or more, you cannot sign on and thus are classed as employed.

I work 16 hours a week on minimum wage. That's not even £100 I receive.

I am expected to live on less than £100 a week and the government feels it can dictate that I am to use my savings for the rest of my living expenses,

You can see that I have little sympathy for anyone losing child benefit and also don't understand why the government can dictate what I am to with my savings yet supports the idiots that got us into this mess. I hate this country.

I guess that most people hide any savings they have over 6k don't they? Some people take the view that when you're dealing with gangsters you don't have to be honest....unbelievable but true.

[longtomsilver]

There may be a silver lining under this cloud of doom and gloom. While I don't see us going back to the halycon days of a single breadwinner in the household and a mum at home I do feel that if jobs keep getting cut then there will be a continued pressure on houseprices to come down. If that happens then we can afford to lose full time jobs and have them replaced by part-time roles on lower wages. We need to unburn the bra of the feminists and rebuild not the UK but the lives of the people who have bourne the brunt of wealth creation.

It could very well be a jobless recovery indeed. I am very bearish wth regards house prices and believe that the market will split in three...

Aspirational homes (big houses with tennis courts, swimming pools and paddocks) will remain out of reach for the middle classes.

A 3 bed house in Suburbia will become affordable one way or another for the salariat.

Property in slum/chav areas will revert to what they were once already (i.e. 10 a penny) including flats in semi-desirable areas and most definately those monstruous 'apartments' built above 3 garages on new developments.

I don't know where this 'property ladder' thing came from but my parents and their friends bought the homes that they are in now when they started out in life bringing up a family. There are exceptions with the ones who made 'real' money later on and then moved up in to one of these aspirational homes... there was none of this keeping up with the Jones on bankster loans and most importantly they remained the same people they once were i.e. grounded and not wanting for a better class of friends.

In my generation there it was the mentality of wanting something now no matter how superficial and that included some ghastly 3 storey new builds on 70/30% shared equity. My mate is a security guard and works 60 hours a week and probably hasn't realised it yet but in a few years the builders/government will come knocking on his door asking for the remainding 30% (10years from purchase(15 in 'exceptional cases)) as far as I am aware he is on a IO mortgage so I don't know where on earth he's going to get the money from. They still can't afford to start a family and are in their earlier thirties. It is sad because they were sold the dream that the house may not be the one they truly wanted but it was a seed to something better (an aspirational home) with ever appreciating houseprices and the 'wealth' it would create for them. How they didn't understand that the aspirational homes would appreciate further out of reach I don't know.

HAPPYHAPPYHAPPY

Edited October 13, 2010 by tomposh101

[goldbug9999]

it was a seed to something better (an aspirational home) with ever appreciating houseprices and the 'wealth' it would create for them. How they didn't understand that the aspirational homes would appreciate further out of reach I don't know.

Very few people understand that very basic bit of maths. I've even seen the odd veteran HPCer talk about "price rises to get equity, to help move to somewhere better".

[council dweller]

There may be a silver lining under this cloud of doom and gloom. While I don't see us going back to the halycon days of a single breadwinner in the household and a mum at home I do feel that if jobs keep getting cut then there will be a continued pressure on houseprices to come down. If that happens then we can afford to lose full time jobs and have them replaced by part-time roles on lower wages. We need to unburn the bra of the feminists and rebuild not the UK but the lives of the people who have bourne the brunt of wealth creation.

It could very well be a jobless recovery indeed. I am very bearish wth regards house prices and believe that the market will split in three...

Aspirational homes (big houses with tennis courts, swimming pools and paddocks) will remain out of reach for the middle classes.

A 3 bed house in Suburbia will become affordable one way or another for the salariat.

Property in slum/chav areas will revert to what they were once already (i.e. 10 a penny) including flats in semi-desirable areas and most definately those monstruous 'apartments' built above 3 garages on new developments.

I don't know where this 'property ladder' thing came from but my parents and their friends bought the homes that they are in now when they started out in life bringing up a family. There are exceptions with the ones who made 'real' money later on and then moved up in to one of these aspirational homes... there was none of this keeping up with the Jones on bankster loans and most importantly they remained the same people they once were i.e. grounded and not wanting for a better class of friends.

In my generation there it was the mentality of wanting something now no matter how superficial and that included some ghastly 3 storey new builds on 70/30% shared equity. My mate is a security guard and works 60 hours a week and probably hasn't realised it yet but in a few years the builders/government will come knocking on his door asking for the remainding 30% (10years from purchase(15 in 'exceptional cases)) as far as I am aware he is on a IO mortgage so I don't know where on earth he's going to get the money from. They still can't afford to start a family and are in their earlier thirties. It is sad because they were sold the dream that the house may not be the one they truly wanted but it was a seed to something better (an aspirational home) with ever appreciating houseprices and the 'wealth' it would create for them. How they didn't understand that the aspirational homes would appreciate further out of reach I don't know.

SADSADSAD

You started with 'a silver lining' and ended up SADSADSAD! Anyway...

Could be we're moving back to time when for most of us the situation we were born into is the one we live and die in, very much the pre-trentieth century world. Maybe the music stops now but no one warned us.

[fellow]

Jobseeker's allowance only lasts six months, after which people are taken off the unemployment stats whether they have found a job or not.

[ken_ichikawa]

Jobseeker's allowance only lasts six months, after which people are taken off the unemployment stats whether they have found a job or not.

Nah contributions based JSA lasts only 6 months, which you can go onto if you have sufficient NI contributions. If you don't or run out the 6 months you get put on means tested JSA which punishes saving.

[longtomsilver]

Jobseeker's allowance only lasts six months, after which people are taken off the unemployment stats whether they have found a job or not.

Contributions based JSA lasts only six months.

Income based can take over if you have no savings above a certain limit and then it's £1 off your weekly benefits for every £100 in the bank. If you have a partner who is working less than ?24 hours a week you may also be entitled to continue your claim but still a very valid comment. There are lots of people who fail to meet the criteria for income based JSA so come off the statistics.

If you are made redundant I feel it is important to make use of the contributions based JSA even if you are failrly solvent as the DWP give you NI credits for the gaps in employment and the goal posts are moving further away.

[Number79]

unemployment will look pretty good once they recruit all the PT census staff.

[pathfinder]

Are you a 'pathfinder' as in helping us find a path through poverty or is it something to do with dropping bombs on people!?

I'm already on 16.5 and enjoying it. The wife is an HCA at a large hospital, started in January after 5 years of doing pretty much nothing.

Are you keeping an eye on the Universal Credit thing to be announced next week? Sounds like a couple both working part-time would get it though PAYE, maybe not means tested either.

Not taking much notice of the Universal Credit thing till it happens but that sounds good may have a peek. Just starting to get tax credits +£42 a week, 2 weeks back, on top of my £30 left over, they should just raise the basic rate tax bracket, but how else will you nail people to NMW for 30+ hours a week .

[Unsafe As Houses]

unemployment will look pretty good once they recruit all the PT census staff.

Over 35,000 people will be employed in mostly part-time roles between April and August for the 2011 Census.

http://ig11.i-grasp.com/docs/images/579/6/1/Frequently_Asked_Questions.pdf

I'm thinking of doing one of thepart-time jobs alongside my current full-time job.

[Home_To_Roost]

When employment reduces by 0.1% "Employment Falls"

When House Prices fall by 3.6% "House Prices Ease"

????