Amid all the economic gloom at the moment, the unemployment figure is one bright spot. It is just 3.6 per cent, down from 3.8 per cent this year, and close to a historic low. But, as I say in the Times this morning, even this glimmer of hope is tarnished.
The low unemployment number disguises how many people have left the labour force: more than 20 per cent of working-age Brits are economically inactive, meaning they are neither in work nor looking for it. More than five million are claiming out-of-work benefits.
Even in the coming recession, unemployment won’t exceed 5 per cent, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility. (Remember how in the 1980s, unemployment went into double digits). There are, according to the Office for National Statistics, more than a million vacancies in the economy.
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