Unemployment is down to 7.8 per cent from 7.9 per cent three months ago, according to the ONS:
Unemployment rate (aged 16+), seasonally adjusted
- The employment rate for those aged from 16 to 64 for October to December 2012 was 71.5%, up 0.3 percentage points from July to September 2012. There were 29.73 million people in employment aged 16 and over, up 154,000 from July to September 2012.
- The unemployment rate for October to December 2012 was 7.8% of the economically active population, down 0.1 percentage points from July to September 2012. There were 2.50 million unemployed people, down 14,000 from July to September 2012.
- The inactivity rate for those aged from 16 to 64 for October to December 2012 was 22.3%, down 0.2 percentage points from July to September 2012. There were 8.98 million economically inactive people aged from 16 to 64, down 94,000 from July to September 2012.
- Between October to December 2011 and October to December 2012, total pay (including bonuses) rose by 1.4% and regular pay (excluding bonuses) rose by 1.3%.
The rise in total employment takes it to a new record high, for the 140th time. It shouldn’t be taken too seriously, because most of the increase is simple population growth, but you can be certain that that is a statistic which will be rolled out again soon.
Similarly, the release shows a further 65,000 private sector jobs in June 2012, meaning that you will continue to hear the soundbite “one million private sector jobs since the election”. That too is not strictly true; as George points out, that million includes 196,000 jobs “reclassified” from the public sector. Take those out, and we still aren’t at a million new jobs, even with the latest increase.
The earnings rise, of 1.4 per cent between October and December 2011 and the same period in 2012, is lower than it had been year-on-year last month, and remains stubbornly below inflation. The ONS confirms that “prices therefore increased by more than earnings”, as they have done consistently since the recession. The gap is growing, too, as inflation looks likely to stay around 3 per cent despite falling wages.
One unambiguously good datapoint is that the trend to underemployment seems to be reversing. With 167,000 new full time jobs, the number of people working part time who don’t want to be is falling, although the number of people working temporarily who don’t want to rose by another percentage point on the quarter.
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