Unemployment at record low despite Treasury's pre-referendum warning of 500,000 job losses
2 min read
Britian's unemployment rate has fallen to a record low, defying pre-referendum Treasury forecasts that voting to leave the EU would cost the British economy half a million jobs by 2018.
The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics show employment in the three months to January was its joint highest ever rate of 75.3%, while the jobless total stood at 4.3%.
That brought the overall number of people in work to 32.25m, up more than 400,000 on the same period in 2016-17.
However the headline employment figures do not include the almost-two million people on long-term disability benefits who are unable to work.
Unemployment in November-January was also up 24,000 on the previous three-month period, but still 127,000 lower than last year’s figures.
‘DIY RECESSION’
Today’s figures are a boost for eurosceptics who criticised the Government’s pessimistic pre-referendum forecasts about the effect of a vote to leave the EU.
In the run-up for the June 2016 vote, Treasury analysis claimed the UK could suffer a recession worth "around 3.6%" of GDP and the loss of 500,000 jobs in the two years after the referendum.
The estimate was based on a "shock scenario" using what the department called "cautious assumptions" about the UK negotiating a bilateral trade deal with Brussels.
Then chancellor George Osborne claimed the UK risked an immediate “DIY recession” if there was a vote to leave the EU, while David Cameron said it would “cost at least half a million jobs”.
WAGES
Despite today's positive employment figures, wages remain stagnant, with real-terms take-home pay down 0.2% over the three-month period.
However the Resolution Foundation thinktank estimates that the pay squeeze will finally end in the three months to February, with average salaries projected to rise by 0.1%.
The Foundation's senior economist Stephen Clarke said the overall outlook for British workers was still bleak.
“While it’s a relief that pay packets are no longer shrinking, the outlook for anaemic pay growth remains a huge living standards concern," he said.
"Average pay is still lower than it was a decade ago, and an entire generation of young workers are still yet to experience the 3-4 per cent pay rises that were once the norm.”
