Economic inactivity and the recession

Perhaps the two most dangerous words for any Labour politician to say right now are “green shoots”. Spend long enough in the economic desert and you can hallucinate, and many of the blips right now – an upturn in some property prices, a slight recovery in sterling – could be taken by anxious politicians as proof that the worst is over. But amidst these are genuine good signs. The banking system finally seems to have been stabilised (at cost, yet uncalculated, to the public purse). The fall of the pound has helped stem the fall in exports: Britain has fared better than may other European countries (the joys of a floating currency). And at a briefing with James Purnell today, I was told about another glimmer of hope: that unemployment is not yet feeding into a rise in economic inactivity.

It wasn’t billed as ‘green shoots’, but a hope that the effect of this recession on medium-term joblessness won’t be as pernicious.