CEP State of Working Britain blog:
SWOB 6: Record employment in the UK? Well yes but....
1 March 2016
Common Mis-Perceptions About Recent UK Labour Market Performance No 1. A Record number of people in work
The opening sentence of the latest DWP press release on the state of the labour market trumpets that ''there are a record 31.4 million people in work''. While this is true, it should not be taken as a measure of employment performance (and beware of anyone who claims it is) for the simple fact that the UK population is also at a record high and growing. Just as it would not make sense to compare the sizes of the workforce in Norway and Spain and conclude that Spain was doing better simply because it has more people in work. The respective sizes of the populations make such a comparison of employment levels meaningless.
This article was published in the State of Working Britain blog on March 1, 2016
Link to article here
Related links
Jonathan Wadsworth webpage
CEP State of Working Britain webpage
Labour Markets Programme webpage