FactCheck: Cameron slips up on employment figures
The claim
“These figures are disappointing but we shouldn’t ignore the fact that since the election there are 500,000 more jobs in the private sector and employment overall, there are more people – 300,000 more in work than there were a year ago.”
Prime Minister David Cameron, Prime Minister’s Questions, 14 September 2011
The background
The PM battled to explain the grim news today that unemployment has suffered its largest quarterly increase in two years, jumping by 80,000 between May and June.
As he looked to private sector jobs growth for salvation, Mr Cameron was lambasted by Ed Miliband who said: “His claim, and the Chancellor’s central claim – that you can cut the public sector and the private sector would make up the difference – isn’t happening.”
Back in November, George Osborne told the Commons that based on forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), private sector job creation would “far outweigh” the job losses in the public sector.
Indeed, 35 leading businessmen, including Marks & Spencer chairman Sir Stuart Rose, backed the Chancellor in a letter to The Daily Telegraph.
They wrote: “The private sector should be more than capable of generating additional jobs to replace those lost in the public sector.”
Who’s right? FactCheck digs out its calculator.
The analysis
The claim that more than 500,000 private sector jobs have been created in a year is one of Mr Osborne’s favourite, but to make it work after today’s figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Mr Cameron had to stretch beyond the year, further back to the second quarter of 2010.
Why? Because during that quarter, the net change in private sector jobs was a huge +311,000.
Number 10 told FactCheck that since the end of the first quarter last year (March 31st), 575,000 new private sector jobs have come on stream.
And if Mr Cameron had stuck to that, he’d have been on the money. But he specifically said “since the election”.
There’s the catch – Q2 of 2010 straddled the election, covering 1 April to June 30th.
In the year since then, the private sector job market has only grown by just 264,000 jobs. For Mr Cameron’s 500,000 claim to hold fast, he’d need to prove that 236,000 jobs were created between May 6 and June 30.
The ONS doesn’t break the numbers down month by month. But after much hassling from FactCheck, the ONS pointed us to the only set of figures that give any indication of the pattern of job creation over that quarter.
These are “experimental” labour force figures that the ONS produces, but doesn’t put its name to. And what they show is a massive rise in overall employment of 129,000 in April 2010, but a drop of 89,000 in June.
Even if we were incredibly generous to the PM, and split the jobs across the three months evenly, he’d still be some way off the 500,000 mark.
All of which leaves very little to support the idea that the private sector is “far outweighing” public sector losses.
Today, Mr Miliband pointed out: “For every two jobs being cut in the public sector, less than one is being created in the private sector.”
And he’s right – in the last quarter, 111,000 public sector jobs were lost and only 41,000 private sector jobs were created.
Year-on-year, the figures barely break even. Public sector jobs are down 240,000, and the private sector is up just 264,000 in the year to the end of June 2011.
This proves the second half of Mr Cameron’s claim wrong – employment overall has only risen by 24,000 in the last year, not by 300,000 as he claimed.
The verdict
Mr Cameron had to change the goalposts today to make a dismal set of stats seems brighter, but even his best efforts fell flat.
The PM was wrong about 300,000 jobs being created in a year – today’s year-on-year figures show that overall employment has risen by just 24,000 in the year to the end of June 2011.
And as for creating half a million private sector jobs since the election, Mr Cameron had to stretch the year out – to include the crucial second quarter of 2010 during which 311,000 jobs were created.
The problem is that the general election came amid Q2, and there are no monthly figures for it – so Mr Cameron can’t prove how many of the jobs came after he swept into Number 10 or how many came before.
What’s worse, the evidence suggests that by far the biggest jump came in April – during Labour’s last days.
By Emma Thelwell
Update: After this FactCheck was published, Mr Miliband wrote to David Cameron accusing him of using inaccurate stats and demanding that he return to the Commons to correct them. You can read the letter here.
There are 19 comments on this post
It’s a pattern. Cameron was questioned three times at PMQs over different”mistakes” he’d made at previous PMQs…all “mistakes” beneficial to his case….
Labour will be after him again on this… rightly so. He either lies or is careless withthe facts, neither of which is acceptable….
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There is spin and then there is lying to the house. Cameron is on thin ice.
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working male – just sat through another extremely bias set of ‘news’ reports from the impartial Channel 4 news team. I particularly liked the report where inward infrastucture investment was being ‘slashed’ over this parliament whilst, mockingly, investment was awaited from China to kick start some of the governments larger projects.Clearly Channel 4 news are aware of large sums of money within government coffers! Or, are they suggesting we reverse the deficit reduction program and return to the free spending days of Labour – spending money we did not have and were not earning!! Ask Greece and Ireland where this srategy gets you! Jon Snow is incapable of presenting balanced viewpoints when the dreaded ‘Tories’ are involved this is an insult to viewers who wish to be intelligently informed.
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Kevin
You mean Ireland and Greece who tried Austerity and choked off demand in their economy?
If you have more people out of work you have less tax revenues and more benefit payments meaningyou increase the deficit reduce.
I suggest you look up the paradox of thrift
Or are you saying we should cut our way to becoming the next herbert hoover?
You are economically illiterate.
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Ah that old trick, when you get caught lying discredit the accuser.
And its all opinion to boot, whilst of course the blogpost is confirmed, unbiased, fact.
sigh.
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Not Cameron’s only slip up today – did i hear him mention public sector pension “cuts” only to quickly change it to “reforms”.
The mask is slipping…
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Yes u did. So did I. They are cuts not reforms. He needs to be more honest and not lie.
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I caught that too…..
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cameron is being proved right on the only statistic that matters. There is private sector job growth. The number of jobs being lost in the public sector will fall to zero when we have the right size public sector. So long as the private sector continues creating jobs as at present , eventually all those lost to the public sector will be back in employment. It would be nice if the loss and the gain were in complete sync, but at least the end result will be as promised.
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Cameron is being proved wrong on his statements to Parliament, a bad place for a PM to visit and revisit. It’s not clear whether it’s the truth he doesn’t care about, or Parliament.
As for the “private sector jobs will eventually replace public sector jobs, just you wait..”.
That’s not what George Osborne said. At his June 2010 budget the treasury published a diagram showing exports replacing the (then current) consumer spending as the main driver of jobs and growth this year.
It hasn’t happened and there is no sign of it happening.
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But Stuart you often need two private sector jobs to make up for every public sector one lost – working part-time in MacD’s doesn’t pay the kind of wage people can bring a family up on.
The higher the unemployment figures the more the private sector can keep wages suppressed for those ‘lucky’ enough to have a job. They have also been able rely on the govt subsidising their private companies by making up peoples wages with tax credits – although I suspect the new universal credit will result in this being severely cut and the poorest finding themselves with even less in their pocket.
When figures are quoted for jobs created they should be divided up to show jobs over 30 hours a week (ie more or less full time) and jobs under that. Then we might get a real sense of what employment is being created and if the balance is going up or down.
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Cameron’s big problem is that should the private sector job creation lag too far behind public sector job reductions there will be more people tightening their belts and not spending as much. The result of this will be a further slow down in private sector job creation (and possibly job reductions in the private sector). I believe there has been little cutting so far that would not have happened under Labour so there is a real danger of putting the UK economy back into recession.
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Stuart – Even if what you say did happen, in the meantime welfare state is stretched even further, the tax base is reduced and consumer confidence continues to fall. You may be happy to hang around for an eventuality, most people need food on the table and somewhere to live.
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“35 leading businessmen, including Marks & Spencer chairman Sir Stuart Rose, backed the Chancellor in a letter to The Daily Telegraph.
They wrote: “The private sector should be more than capable of generating additional jobs to replace those lost in the public sector.”
There is no certainty they did actually write the letter. It’s perfectly feasible they simply put their name to a letter written by one of Osborne’s spads.
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More unemployment, less public sector workers, so what cry the Tories. Here’s the rub, the unemployed drain the public purse and contribute zero to tax revenues, public sector workers contribute to tax revenue and consumer confidence.
What would you rather more of?
I have yet to see a single instance where the private sector winning a contract has been beneficial to anyone but the shareholders of that organisation.
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Miliband should have made clear that he actually supports the cuts. The rest is just politiking.
Better that one of the main parties actuallty had some policies such as: ring fenced banks: no bailouts for investment or part investment banks: no more ruinous QE: A cut in VAT.
3 parties trading numbers and rhetoric whilst agreeing to agree. Is that democracy?
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