Bag's Rants

I love statistics.

But even I have to laugh at this piece.

The writer says ' Meanwhile, the number claiming benefits fell by 4,200 to 852,900 in August taking the unemployment rate to 2.6% - its lowest level since April 2005.' Read here.

Super wow. In reality it could have gone up for the last ten years reaching a peak over the last eighteen months and now come down a little bit in real terms probably with the same manipulation of data that is a hallmark for this bunch of statistical manipulators. Unemployment, employment in a public sector job and those on sickness benefits all come to 43% of the population according to the statistic currently bandied about. On it's own then the fall is pretty unremarkable as the level of unemployment fluctuates regularly but this makes it look like a major achievement. Which for this government it probably is.

All I got from the article though is that private sector wages have gone up by more than last year while public sector wages have not. This must give ammunition for the public sector unions to demand compatibility. Which may actually blow the government wage rise targets. Poor chaps it would not be so bad for them if it was not for those private sector workers being greedy.

posted by Bag @ 6:16 pm