Revealed: ONS blames Ring doorbells for dodgy jobs data

What caused the Office for National Statistics (ONS) to lose faith in its own jobs figures? After the pandemic, the ONS asked for the ‘national statistic’ quality mark to be taken off its estimates of whether Brits are working when response rates to its labour force survey collapsed. Fewer and fewer people were willing to invite an interviewer into their home to give them the 45-minute questionnaire. Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey said ‘it is a problem’ to not have accurate unemployment numbers when setting interest rates, while Lord Bridges, chair of the House of Lords eco­nomic affairs com­mit­tee, asked: ‘How are the Treasury and the bank to make critical decisions based on dodgy statistics?’

So why did the response rate fall? Ring doorbells were one surprising culprit mentioned by Sir Ian Diamond, the ONS’s leader, as he gave evidence to the Treasury select committee today.