News Unemployment numbers

[cHodAX]

Hmm this smells like a fiddle, the 'official' numbers which are based upon a survey! lol! Well they show a massive drop of 88,000 for the last 3 months, funnily enough though the ACTUAL claimant count for unemployment benefit went up 17,000 last month alone. You might think well they must have had amazing drops in March/April? Nope, claimant count went up in those as well.

Does anyone actually know how this works? How can one figure be climbing at an fast rate and another falling at an even faster one?

BBC News - UK unemployment total falls sharply

 

[Helme]

I'm assuming it's the same shuffling of people they include or not that the Americans use. Basically, there's a dozen or so different criteria that excludes you from the unemployment list, to make it look like it's actually lower than it is in reality. An example from across the Atlantic is how they don't count people whose unemployment benefits have run out because they've been unemployed since the start of the recession, cutting out a huge chunk of people who simply put don't exist anymore - at least on paper.

 

[Calaen]

The reason for the rise in the claimants of benefits is the people they are moving from other benefits like incapacity, long term sickness.

In other words alot of the people who have been fiddling benefits are now being put on the JSA hence the rise in those figures.

 

[cHodAX]

The reason for the rise in the claimants of benefits is the people they are moving from other benefits like incapacity, long term sickness.

In other words alot of the people who have been fiddling benefits are now being put on the JSA hence the rise in those figures.

They are still unemployed though. How can the survey show a drop of 88,000 when those on IC were never counted as unemployed in the first place? The actual claimant count is closer to the truth because it reflects actual numbers claiming the basic amount and being elgible for work.

 

[GimmlyThe3rd]

I'm depressed, can't work ...

Thanks for my 35k a year.

 

[Calaen]

They are still unemployed though. How can the survey show a drop of 88,000 when those on IC were never counted as unemployed in the first place? The actual claimant count is closer to the truth because it reflects actual numbers claiming the basic amount and being elgible for work.

No Idea dude, I queried it the last time figures were released, and there was a debate on Radio 2 over lunchtime and the topic was brought up.

 

[Ormorof]

if you are unemployed for long enough you become "Economically Inactive" meaning you dont show in the unemployment figures but still get your JSA

in Hull for example (during the boom years!) they claimed there was only 4-5% unemployment but 25% (ish) of the population was "economically inactive" people

which is an absurd way of measuring it, you dont work then you are unemployed, only good reason not to be counted is if you cant work or you are retired...

 

[Helme]

Announcing that 30% of your population is unemployed is political suicide however.

 

[Ormorof]

but in the fair city of Kingston-upon-Hull it has been a fact for many many years

 

[Helme]

Not a publicly announced fact however, it's a bit like the Iraq war - we all know why we're really there but nobody in an official position will say it outright.

 

[BloodOmen]

Not surprised they're going down due to the biased medical service they have, sister has a muscle disease so she cant work naturally, she goes for a medical and they say shes perfectly healthy to work despite having a GP and a Consultant vouching for her (to the point where they were willing to accompany her to a Tribunal as representatives) and why do they say that? because they literally get paid to say 'No' they get paid more for hitting specific targets.

Most biased system known to man.

 

[Bugz]

It's actually to do with the fact that the total stock of employable people is a combination of those working and those not working but who are actively seeking work - i.e. via JSA, govt initatives etc. There is a second stock 'not actively seeking work' not factored into the original stock.

So if people move from the first stock to the second stock, unemployment looks like it's going down but the sum of benefit payouts will increase.

It's a symptom of prolonged downturns - motivation and willingness to look for work suffer the longer you are unemployed and eventually they get added to the long term unemployed stock if one isn't careful.

edit - In terms of the statistics, the opposite is occurring from what I've said above. People are moving from the second stock to the first stock & the rate at which people are moving from actively seeking work to working is less than the movement of the second stock to the first. In other words: less people not actively seeking work, more people working but also higher JSA claimants BUT they are now in the unemployment stock which is good!

 

[ilaya]

The reason for the rise in the claimants of benefits is the people they are moving from other benefits like incapacity, long term sickness.

In other words alot of the people who have been fiddling benefits are now being put on the JSA hence the rise in those figures.

fiddling or just not entitled to stuff because they moved goalposts so much that not matter what your mental health state is you can never claim for ESA?

 

[cHodAX]

Same again this month, down 24,000 on one set of figures and up 24,000 on another. It is an utter nonsense to say the jobless total is going down on one hand and then up on another. It is nothing more than a PR exercise.

BBC News - UK unemployment level falls again

 

[Calaen]

fiddling or just not entitled to stuff because they moved goalposts so much that not matter what your mental health state is you can never claim for ESA?

Fiddling in the sense that they really should not have been on long term sick in the first place.

 

[Raven]

lazy people forced into work. winrar

 

[old.Tohtori]

Unemployment numbers are nothing compared to the silly amount of unemployment office workers. Compared to the unemployed, it's ridicilously high, especially since they have such long process times.

Someone said it's something like, they have to see one person every week to process every person. One per week. You're lucky if the officer gives you half an hour every 2 months

 

[rynnor]

The official figures are meaningless - they just snapshot change in employment in a rolling 6 month period.