Wednesday 17 October 2012

Jobs keep rising in unrecession



Well, as usual, the economist can't explain how we can be in recession for a year but see the number of unemployed, even the number of youth unemployed, continue to drop in the UK.

Naysayers are prone to jumping on the bandwagon of its all 'self-employed' people who are not working really or part-time jobs. Of course, some of this will be true, but many of the 'self-employed' are reflecting the broader move to contract work in society - a move which has been ongoing since the end of a 'job for life' era in the private sector 20 years ago.

of course, being self-employed and managing to avoid some of those egregious NI taxes, plus pay yourself dividends too may be working out nicely for some people - certainly a whole bunch that I know have done this - anecdotal alert - but I certainly never used to see this on the scale it is now. I wonder why...must be some relationship between high taxes and people doing things to minimise tax payments - any ideas?

Plus of course the Government is for once right to trumpet that the "unforgivable" cuts to public service have led to a net creation of jobs - in fact an all time high. Who would have thought? And of course this is a double bonus, because less state spend is helped by increase tax revenue from private sector jobs.

Given the dire state of the economy in general, its is pleasing that there is one bright spot to write about occasionally!

10 comments:

Sebastian Weetabix said...

I think all SME company directors are doing what we do; pay ourselves a minimal wage, just over the tax threshold, and then top it off with dividend payments. To be fair this can backfire - in 2008/9 we had an absolutely horrible year, so there was no dividend! Happily the memsahib is in a decent occupation, so we could still keep afloat.

Blue Eyes said...

Could the (weird) GDP numbers be caused by overstating the impact of public spending on economic activity? During the upswing GDP might have been over-estimated due to rising public spending, and now the numbers look flatter because public spending is rising less?

Budgie said...

Perhaps the rising number of people in work and the slightly declining GDP can be explained by private sector workers taking less pay.

But then that would never occur to jennifer government, or even jimmy.

phil5 said...

Mr Weetabix, don't you risk being caught by IR35?

James Higham said...

You buy it do you, CUS? Commenters at all major dailies analysed the figures and were not impressed.

Also:

http://radio.foxnews.com/2012/08/06/economist-harry-dent-another-market-crash-is-coming-soon/

http://moneymorning.com/2012/07/23/prepare-for-stock-market-crash-2013/

http://www.moneynews.com/StreetTalk/economy-2008-crash-schiff/2012/06/15/id/442489

Anonymous said...

I was at an out-of-town (and out of London) shopping centre last weekend and the shops selling curtains, soft-furnishings, sofas etc. were rammed. What recession?

Maybe folks are not moving house, but doing-up what they have?

Electro-Kevin said...

It could be people blowing their savings.

In this particular recession (and the way in which it is being dealt with) it is particularly foolish to save.

What sort of jobs growth is this ? Wealth creating or wealth blowing ?

I don't mean to be negative but WHAT austerity ? It hasn't happened yet.

Weekend Yachtsman said...

"...number of unemployed, even the number of youth unemployed, continue to drop in the UK"

In the UK, yes, but not in the socialist republic of Jockland.

A warning there for the Nats, perhaps?

65% public sector does not make for a functional economy, maybe?

Jan said...

Good if we're all working less in part-time jobs. It means more family time which is much nicer for children to actually see something of their parents. We may also have to get used to living on less money. Better for the soul than wasting it all on c***. Who wants to work 40 hrs or more per week anyway making some fat-cat rich? I suppose it depends if you "live to work" or "work to live".

Electro-Kevin said...

Stupid comment of mine earlier.

It's probably all a result of effective benefit reforms forcing people to seek work in the private sector.

There don't need to have been new vacancies, just the need for the unemployed to take the ones that do exist more seriously - it's all an indication of how slack things have been as regards welfare.