UK – Unemployment has fallen and it will rise again soon

The most unexpected figures recently were the big drops in the UK’s headline unemployment number and rate. However, the way the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reports the numbers – as three-month rolling averages – doesn’t really help us understand what is happening.

It turns out that this occurs because of concerns about the variability of sample estimates that arise because the survey from which the numbers are extracted – the labour force survey (LFS) – is underfunded and sample sizes are so small that there is a lot of month-to-month variation.

If, for example, you go to the latest data release on unemployment rates from Eurostat, the statistical agency for the EU, you find that there are unemployment rates for August for 22 EU countries, including even tiny Cyprus and Malta; Hungary has data up to July, while Estonia, Greece, Latvia and the UK have data through to June only. It’s time to fix this, Mr Cameron; it’s embarrassing.

Monthly data is available, however, on the ONS website, even though it is not designated as what we call “national statistics”, which are used to calculate the rolling averages. The table illustrates the problem. The headline numbers were that the unemployment rate was 7.9 per cent, down from 8.1 per cent, and unemployment was 2,528,000, down from 2,577,000, marked in red in the table. These are derived as rolling averages, so the 7.9 per cent is the average of June to August, while the 8.1 per cent is the average of March through May, and similarly for the unemployment numbers as well as the employment and inactivity rates.

What does stand out is that the drop in unemployment in August to 2,421,000 (from 2,633,000 in July) looks like an outlier, notleast because of the huge increase in inactivity of 280,000 and a fall in employment of 32,000. Something strange appears to be going on. Note that employment fell in the past two months, from a June peak that is probably distorted by the Olympics, as well as by young people who may not be entering education, in part because of the increase in tuition fees. So the unemployment rate is likely to rise; the Bank of England agents in their October report suggested that there would be “little job creation” in the private sector over the next six months and their past predictions have been reliable…

 Choosen excerpts by JMM from

via Here’s why unemployment has fallen and why it will rise again soon.