Just under a fifth of the coalition's 'million new jobs' are the result of the reclasification of further education and sixth form college teachers as private sector employees.
David Cameron likes to boast that his government has created over a million private sector jobs since 2010.
The Prime Minister has made the claim in the commons during PMQs, and yesterday it was once again made by chairman of the Conservative party Grant Shapps in an article entitled ‘Five simple messages for the doorstep this Christmas‘.
“We are cutting taxes for British businesses, helping to create jobs. Overall, 1.1 million more people are now working compared to the election,” Shapps boasted, accompanying his post with the following graph:
The first thing one notices about the graph is the large jump in private sector jobs seemingly created in April 2012, just short of two years after the coalition came to office. Perhaps on seeing this graph you, like me, were wondering what accounted for this encouraging surge in private sector employment last year. What innovative (and clearly successful) policy did the coalition introduce which created so many jobs so quickly?
They didn’t, is the answer, because the large increase in private sector employment seen in April 2012 was actually nothing of the sort, but rather was due to the reclasification of 196,000 public sector jobs to private sector ones. In reality, just under a fifth of the coalition’s ‘million new jobs’ are actually the result of the reclasification of further education and sixth form college teachers as private sector employees.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) made this clear last year when it said:
“These educational bodies employed 196,000 people in March 2012 and 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.”
Claiming the government has created a ‘million new jobs’ relies on a completely dishonest interpretation of the figures. Especially making the same claim repeatedly even after it’s been pointed out as wrong by no less than the ONS.
And this from a party which in opposition regularly accused Labour of twisting the statistics to suit its own agenda.
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19 Responses to “The Tory sleight of hand over ‘1.1 million more’ private sector jobs”
Peter Wild
Well even IDS thinks Shapps / Green is a liar, so we shouldn’t trust his word on this..
The massaging of employment figures happens under all governments. However, what no one seems to mention is that official figures exclude people being sanctioned, on mandatory volunteering, or who seek work, but cannot claim to due to savings or partner income. This also assumes that there are no people in ESA-WRAG seeking some kind of work (either through volition or threat). Also not mentioned in the gap between the ONS estimates of vacancies and the overall unemployment figure, however crude a measure that is. About for times as many official job seekers per vacancy if I recall from eye balling yesterday’s figures…
I suspect Labour won’t push this point as they will make the same arguments and play the same tricks if they get in government again.
Sparky
The are fewer unemployed now than when Labour left office. Inflation is less than half what it was when Labour left office. Consumer confidence was at a six year high in Sept -higher than when Labour left office. If I was James Bloodworth I would stop posting articles like these -Labour has lost the argument on the economy.
Ady
What was the large jump when the Cons got into power a result of?
Ady
@sparky, as in the late eighties the confidence is wafer thin and it will all come crashing down and back into recession when the artificially created property bubble bursts. The only hope for Tories is that this confidence is enough to win them the election and that the bubble does not burst prematurely.
Timmy2much
This is a typical political ploy used across all information and by all parties – it is about time that how this data is collated is taken out of political hands and set in stone because it is impossible to look at any political data from the past 30 years and draw any truly meaningful information from it.