Wednesday 9 September 2009

Employment - more 'spin' than 'recovery'



As predicted the 'spin' of 'recovery' is getting louder, and wider ... for instance a BBC headline today referred to the UK jobs market starting to show signs of 'recovery', making reference to monthly research from KPMG and the Recruitment and Employment Confederation which found "marginal increases" in appointments in August.

"It seems that employers are becoming more confident in their hiring decisions," said Kevin Green, chief executive of the Recruitment & Employment Confederation, the survey's other co-sponsor. Again it doesn't take very long to spot the clear 'self-interest' in such statements, given the interest of such groups to talk confidence/recruitment up.

Despite all the current hype about recovery, little has changed and the latest official unemployment figures show that the number of people out of work in the UK is continuing to rise (unemployment increased by 220,000 to 2,435,000 - to 7.8%) and a picture can often says a thousand words ... and the graph below clearly tells a story (even after all the Government's manipulation - e.g. moving unemployed people out of this category and onto incapacity benefit, moving more students into colleges/universities etc) ...



... and the levels of unemployment are set to rise much further in the future too. If that's what we call 'recovery' ... one has to wonder what 'disaster' looks like? ... and given concerns raised about 'double dip recessions', are we about to find out?

... In my humble opinion I think this is highly likely for a number of reasons (e.g. tax increases/public sector job cuts to try to balance the books and pay off the some of massive Government debt) ... and it's unlikely to be very long before it arrives ... and it sounds like Lord Mandelson (the ultimate 'spin doctor') quietly acknowledges/knows this already too ...