How bad can unemployment get during the Brown Bust? Predictions of two or three million unemployed miss an important point. The concept of the “dole” has changed: unlike in the 1980s it has become a way of life, as well as a safety net. There were 5.2 million on out-of-work benefits last February of which just 806,000 were claiming unemployed benefit.
The number of out-of-work, working-age people sustained by the workforce could break six million next year. The progress on tackling what Beveridge memorably called the “giant evil” of idleness was woeful – mainly because 81 percent of the new jobs were either created or taked by immigrants. They may go home, but the British jobless will still be with us. And it’s a worsening version of the above graph that the new government will have to confront.
PS 7Data exists from 1979 for only three categories, which the DWP kindly emailed me on request.
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