No shortage of jobs?!

2012-02-06T15:39:00.001Z

According to Maria Miller, a government minister, unemployment is rising thanks to a lack of "appetite" for the jobs on offer. I wonder whether the ability to make such comments is a luxury bestowed by a safe seat.

As The Guardian points out (read for full breakdown of comments), there are approximately six people for every vacancy in the country. All publicly-available information indicates that the number of applications for each vacancy is great, and competition intense. Work for fresh graduates is even more competitive, often reaching into a treble-figure-number of applications per place. From personal experience I know many graduates are taking casual labour or entry-level work, thereby making it more difficult for the long-time jobless in areas of Hartlepool and Middlesbrough.

Taking a glance at job website reed.co.uk, I find very little merit in Miller's claim (search being within 10 miles of the Wirral, the area she noted in the interview):

Domestic Cleaner, Liverpool, £6.00-7.00 per hour, 23 applications in under 12 hours.

Site Secretary, Liverpool, £6.00 per hour, 14 applications in 24 hours.

Team Assistant, Liverpool, £6.15 per hour, 100+ applications in 48 hours.

Caretaker, Wallasey, £6.08-6.50 per hour, 8 applications in 24 hours.

Furthermore, Miller suggests there "isn't a shortage of jobs": at the best this is highly misleading, while at worst it's provocative flame-baiting. Between July and September last year, there were 462,000 vacancies; by comparison, there were 604,000 vacancies throughout the same period in 2008. The number of vacancies currently stands around the 463,000 mark, but unemployment continues to rise so as to further dilute the number of opportunities.

If taken in absolute terms, the number of vacancies has increased by 0.2% over the last quarter - but it's still a significant drop when compared to 2008's figures. If taken in terms relative to unemployment, there is a damning shortage: the rise in unemployment over the past quarter has outstripped the number of new vacancies. The number of available jobs might be constant, but that's a ridiculous assertion when the relative number to unemployed is lower than ever.

The situation is even worse in the north east, where there are fewer vacancies and higher levels of unemployment. To suggest a great number of people are likely unemployed due to fussiness, while denying there is an issue with the number of available jobs, is incredibly insulting to the vast majority of jobseekers.

Zuckerberg, meet The Economist

2012-02-05T13:11:00.001Z

Possibly the best front cover ever. These have been done to death all over the internet, but this doesn't feel old.

All new!

2011-08-09T14:51:00.001+01:00

For good or for ill, all older blog content has been removed. All fresh with a new focus from now on.

CAL.B

No shortage of jobs?!

Zuckerberg, meet The Economist

All new!