Wednesday, January 02, 2008

Brown spins New Deal figures

Just read this amusing press release from Gordon Brown and the Department of Work and Pensions that is pure spin. Apparently
Someone has moved off benefits and into work every three minutes thanks to the New Deal job-seeking programme, which is ten years old this week. More than 1.8 million people have found a job through the New Deal since its launch in 1998 - that's one person every three minutes, every single day.
The calculation is pretty much spot on, but it's totally meaningless because it doesn't tell you how many people remained in the short term work that the New Deal gave them for a start. take for example the Millenium Dome which has New Deal employees, that project was short term, so whilst those people got jobs, they didn't keep them.

In fact, the figure is actually work placed, not individuals placed in work. Some of them could and probably are duplicates bexcause of the way the YTS works. Did I say YTS? I meant New Deal obviously, unfortunately ever since I did my dissertation ont he renamed project I can't help but think of it in that way. I did appreciate some of the "Notes to Editors" though. Especially the one that said
Long term youth and adult claimant unemployment have fallen by almost three-quarters since 1997 - the New Deal and other labour market interventions have made a significant contribution to this success.
Note how they talk about "long term"? It;s the Gordon buzzword of the day plus of course they don't want to draw attention to their own figures published in Parliament that shows that the number of young people not in work, education or training is actually higher than it was in 1997.

Of course, whoever is in Government spins these sort of figures to make themselves look good. Then they tell us that people are unfairly cynical of politics and that we have to fund their political parties with our taxes.

8 comments:

Old BE said...

I don't have the figures, but isn't total unemployment nearly exactly the same as it was 10 years ago? I'm not talking about the numbers claiming JSA.

anthonynorth said...

Have you noticed how being a politician is more and more becoming a staging ground for becoming a novelist?
The connection is not hard to find.

Anonymous said...

Also Ed, I think it is the case that the actual number of Brits in jobs has declined.

All very well and good for our Euro immigrant friends - but for the indigenous population it's a disaster.

Anonymous said...

"

Jobs

The Times December 21, 2006

New Deal not working for youths
Anthony Browne, Chief Political Correspondent
# 37,000 more out of work than 1997
# Jobless rate risen sharply in last 2 years

More young people are out of work now than when Labour won power in 1997 by promising to cut youth unemployment, official figures obtained by The Times reveal.

There are now 37,000 more unemployed people aged 16 to 24 than in May 1997, with the total rising from 665,000 to 702,000, according to the Office for National Statistics.


Another "brown victory then"

BenefitScroungingScum said...

If it wasn't so awful, it would be laughable. Actually it's still laughable. They must all have gone into business as job brokers as that seems to be all New Deal is about
http://benefitscroungingscum.blogspot.com/2007/07/part-3-jobs-broker.html
(each link I provided was to a different, randomly selected jobs broker)
Bendy Girl

Pogo said...

I thought that they got rid of the "long term" unemployed simply by bunging them onto the Invalidity Register..?

Anonymous said...

Any chance you could link to your dissertation?

dizzy said...

No chance, it was in 1999 and I don't have electronic copy anymore. I have one hard copy buried in my loft some where.