The Great "Falling Unemployment" Myth

Once again we are told that unemployment has fallen by 18,000 and that those claiming job seekers allowance (JSA) has also fallen by 40,000.

This is a complete fallacy. The Labour party and economists should be pointing out the huge gamble Osborne is taking with our economy, they should be pointing to the fact that this government are inventing ways to hide the true picture of unemployment, they should be exposing the lies that it is falling by pointing to the massive growth in part-time work, zero hour contracts and low paid jobs and the fact that we have thousands of unemployed hidden on government workfare schemes at any one time, which is complete skewing the true number of unemployed.

It is all part of the great falling unemployment myth! 

The government are simply lying when they say that the private sector has created a million jobs since the election in 2010, they haven't! 

So how many new jobs have been created?

According to the Office National Statistics evidence there has not been one million private sector jobs created it is only 659.328

According to the ONS, 196,000 people were recategorised as a result, meaning that "the reclassification therefore results in a large fall in public sector employment and a corresponding large increase in private sector employment between March and June 2012."

Since 2012 it is not only in higher education that former public sector jobs have been reclassified, this process is now also taking place in mainstream education. When teachers formerly employed in state schools were public sector employees and they join free schools they are then classed as private sector teachers. It is also within the NHS on a very large scale. When companies such as Richard Branson's Virgin Care take over NHS services the staff formerly employed as public sector workers etc,  nurses, care assistants and all ancillary staff  are then no longer public sector workers, they are reclassified as private sector workers.

It is seriously deceitful to refer to all these positions as "new" as the Prime Minister does, as they are not the result of an increase in employment but rather a change in the way the figures are compiled.

Yesterday the Prime Minister deliberately misled parliament when he claimed that one million jobs in the private sector had been created and this morning we have the Conservative party "Numpty in Chief" Chairman Grant Shapps upping the anti and claiming that in fact there has been 1.4 million jobs created in the private sector. This is the trouble with liars, they forget what they have said and their claims become even more absurd, perhaps Shapps should check with the ONS before he makes misleading claims in future?

Grant Shapps and the Prime Minister must also stop using statistics from February; March; April and May 2010, these are jobs which were created under the former Labour government, to use these figures is deliberately misleading the British public. Jan-Mar 2010 28,807 Feb-Apr 2010 28,842 Mar-May 2010 28,930 Apr-Jun 2010 28,975 May-Jul 2010 29,118 When you exclude these months then the total number of 'new' jobs created falls sharply to just 855.328 and from this total you must subtract the 196,000 from Higher education which gives a figure of 659.328. However to get to a proper figure the government MUST subtract all public sector workers jobs in mainstream education and the NHS etc that have simply been reclassified as private sector jobs, because they are simply NOT new! The net remaining figure is a far cry from the ridiculous lie that David Cameron keeps perpetuating.

There is also another anomaly. Yesterday's unemployment figures said the unemployment fell by 18,000 and that those claiming JSA fell by 40,000. If this is so and unemployment really did fall by 18,000 and JSA claimants fall by 40,000? Where is the government hiding the missing 22,000?

All of a sudden when the over a 100,000 people being hidden on government workfare schemes working full time for their JSA and NOT being counted on the unemployment register and those on part-time jobs and zero hour contracts are added to the unemployed total, it is likely to jump by over 500,000 over night.

The government must stop lying to us and start telling us the real truth about the economy, the false recovery and the true number of unemployed.