Whoopee! UK unemployment falls by 49 thousand!

Yes, but you are forgetting that if the government sacks half a million people, then somehow via the magic of the market half a million jobs will spontaneously spring into existence in the private sector! It's economics 101, stupid! Unless those half a million unemployed people stop spending money for some reason, and the private sector starts laying people off to try and maintain profits. But what are the chances of that happening?

Also, I like how everyone in the BBC article is pontificating on the meaning of the figures, despite the fact they are meaningless, my favourite quote being from the Employment Minister: "This is another good set of figures." No it isn't.

The ONS should know better. I had to dig to find the errors in the data (Goldacre's article seems to suggest the error was included in the PDF for the quarter he looked at in 2011, but the link in the article no longer works). Their PDF for this quarter omits it, instead mentioning where to find it on page 26, in a reference that's likely to go over most journalists' heads. And I bet most journalists (or politicians or economists for that matter) didn't get past page 1 or 2, which give an easy to read bullet point summary of the data without even mentioning the possibility of error in the data at all, let alone urging caution in its interpretation, as they should.

With regards to the ONS report's unemployment stats, claimant count doesn't appear to be an issue:

[ETA: Note: Cunningly avoids unemployed people who aren't currently seeking work, perhaps because they aren't able.]

They do also measure JSA claimant count, which the report says rose by 10,100, from September to October (during the same quarter unemployment fell 49k!), but I can't find data for errors (yet).

I'm not so sure they're cooking the stats so much as reading the statistical tea leaves. Which is why we get reports of unemployment rising some quarters, with government ministers trawling the reports looking for a positive spin, when they could just as well say "This data is total shit, so I wouldn't pay any attention to it if I were you."

Just found this video, which explains how the ONS classify people in their report (into: employed, unemployed, inactive):

From 47 seconds:

• Employed - Someone who does more than one hour paid work.
• Unemployed - Someone not employed but looking and available for work.
• Inactive - Someone who is neither employed nor unemployed.

So I guess: workfare = unemployed, but sanctioned/ineligible for JSA would depend on if they are looking for work or not or have found work (i.e. any category). Not sure how the ONS would actually classify workfare, mind.

I can't find anything in the ONS report specifically on workfare, but there are a couple of references like this: "The number of people on government supported training and employment programmes classified as being in employment increased by 22,000 to reach 166,000." and this: "The Government supported training and employment programmes series does not include all people on these programmes; it only includes people engaging in any form of work, work experience or work-related training." Which I guess implies workfare might be included as employment.

Also note that much long term unemployment probably isn't included in the unemployment statistics, but lumped into the "inactive" category. Currently 9.07 million (22.6%) people aged 16-64 are classified as inactive, which are broken down as (page 22 of ONS report):

• Students - 2.23 million
• Retired - 1.43 million
• Looking after family/home - 2.32 million
• Long-term sick - 2.04 million
• Other - 1.05 million

I wonder how many of these people who could work, if they had any choice in the matter, would like to work? (Note that the BBC report made no mention whatsoever of the economically inactive.)

The definition of unemployment used refers solely to the day-to-day churning of the labour market, which, I guess, are the "useful" unemployed: those workless people who help keep wages down by endlessly competing for jobs. Fuck everyone else.

Thanks for that link, wojtek. I'm in a rush now, so I've not read it properly, but a few quick thoughts: that blog seems to take for granted as does everyone else that the data is accurate and useful (it isn't). I'm not sure how accurate the data is for government support and training schemes (couldn't find anything on the error bars), but the 22,000 figure quoted by the blog doesn't necessarily refer to unpaid schemes (the ONS don't distinguish, AFAICT). So from a quick read, that blog post seems to trying to read the statistical tea leaves as well, and in addition misinterprets some of the data.

Not that I necessarily disagree with its general sentiment about the shittyness of workfare and it's increased use. I just don't think any conclusions can be drawn from the data provided by the ONS, except that it is useless data.