The Staggers

The New Statesman’s rolling politics blog

Cameron hasn't created "a million" private sector jobs

How the PM is misleading voters about the government's economic record.

By George Eaton Published 24 October 2012 17:27

David Cameron makes a speech on crime. Photograph: Getty Images.

David Cameron makes a speech on crime at The Centre For Social Justice earlier this week. Photograph: Getty Images.

One of David Cameron's favourite boasts is that "one million new jobs" have been created in the private sector since the coalition came to power. The claim appeared in his conference speech and he repeated it at today's PMQs. It's an impressive stat, cited by Cameron as proof that "our economy is rebalancing". The problem, however, is that it's not true.

The most recent figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that private sector employment has risen by 1.07 million in the two years since the coalition took office (the figures are for June 2010-June 2012), so, at first glance, Cameron's claim might appear to be correct. But what the Prime Minister doesn't want you to know is that a significant part of this increase was due to the reclassification of 196,000 further education and sixth form college teachers as private sector employees. As the ONS stated:

These educational bodies employed 196,000 people in March 2012 and the reclassification therefore results in a large fall in public sector employment and a corresponding large increase in private sector employment between March and June 2012.

If we strip out these 196,000 jobs, the increase in private sector employment is a less impressive 874,000.

Yet, far from correcting this error, Cameron compounded it by today boasting that there were a "million more people in work" than when Labour left office, a claim that takes no account of the 432,000 public sector jobs lost since June 2010 (who says there haven't been cuts?). The true rise in employment is 462,000 (from 29,128,000 to 29,590,000), or 538,000 less than the figure used by Cameron.

After complaining for years about Gordon Brown's manipulation of economic statistics, the government came to power promising a new regime of transparency. But Cameron's willful distortion of the facts on employment suggests he isn't prepared to practice what he preached.

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Tags: Conservatives David Cameron Unemployment

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30 comments

Mon, 2012-10-29 16:22 — John Cheese (not verified)

Probably getting coached on job numbers presentation from obama...

Thu, 2012-10-25 20:41 — Hugh C Markey (not verified)

A Rose by any other name would 'smell' as sweet. You can see Cameron's logic - never give a sucker an even break.
The amazing thing is that many 'middle-class' muddlers know they are being taken for a ride. They seem to enjoy being thrashed by the government's prefects.

Free Ride

Fri, 2012-10-26 09:12 — Robbie's Pies (not verified)

What on earth are you wittering on about?

Thu, 2012-10-25 20:41 — Hugh C Markey (not verified)

Free Ride

Thu, 2012-10-25 10:15 — Robbie's Pies (not verified)

How many of these new jobs are part time jobs previoulsy taken up by people that were previoulsy fully contracted full time workers? If many of them are, which I suspect they are, then the statitical juggling is worse than it appears-like is not being drawn into comparrison with like.

Also, for the sake of the students, teaching is a job that requires security-i.e. the students have the same teacher throughout the year. Full time contracts with provsion against unfair dismissal etc. will, in most cases have been replaced, with hourly paid or agency contracts* where it is easy for an eductaional establishment to fire a teacher-regardless of their ability. Moreover, even if the teacher is perfectly competent they are put in a position where they are not sure if they will have a job with the establishment next year. This is not good for the teachers or more importantly, the students. The Tories high profile dismantling of the NHS is only matched by their low profile ruining of the eductaion system, nasty, nasty incompetent scum.

*Agency contracts are perhaps one of the biggest scandals of our times-an absolute foregoing of rights in favour of slightly higher pay-it's a free market fundamentalists wet dream-and a rational, feeling human being's nightmare.

Thu, 2012-10-25 02:18 — Posh Tosh (not verified)

Just as when St Tony left Downing Street, Cameron seems to have kept the people that shred all of St Tony's expenses whilst a Prime minister.

Yes 13 million unemployment records have been shredded and there are three teenagers claiming £300 billion each on benefits.

According to Dave's rules!

Thu, 2012-10-25 00:17 — Indu Pendent

George
Ed Balls said most of Labours debts were run up because of the banking crisis. Do you think he should correct this error. After all you are not a hypocrite are you?

On first sight the data looks like good news: 432k public sector job not filled by recruitment which is an impressive vote winner. However, this is not as impressive as the 500k it could have been had the coalition had guts and implemented a small amount of austerity.

Inspite of Labour talking down the economy the coalition policies continue to work strongly. If they continue at the same pace then the state will continue to shrink (which Ed Balls has said needs to happen) and there will be a mass relocation of labor from tax payer burden state in to the wealth creating private sector -- extremely electorially attractive for the coalition. Good times ahead under coalition policies but a long road left to repair the disasterous mess left by Labour.

Leaving a disasterous mess for everyone else to mend ... is not great on the CV and Labour has made a habit of it since the 1970s. Labour gets into power when there are enough of the younger generation who cant remember what Labour did when last in office.

Fri, 2012-10-26 09:23 — Robbie's Pies (not verified)

"...the coalition policies continue to work strongly", what you mean the Keynesian ones they tried to sneak past the electorate? (See Paul Krugman's site for some reason NS comments wouldn't allow me to include the link and had this as spam) Though they couldn't even do that without giving their friends a slice of the pie; they really are beneath contempt.

Also what criteria do you use to qualify as a disastrous mess? Like most people I would say blighting the lives of the most vulnerable in the country, crippling the NHS and education sectors, taking Sure Start away from the children who need it most(what kind of sociopath thinks that is okay?) and, despite your gibbering, ruining the economy would qualify as a disastrous mess. Like, the link above notes, if the Tories had continued without these concessions to Keynes the country would be in a far worse state. Let me put that in as clear a way as I can-austerity does not and never will work.

Fri, 2012-10-26 09:25 — Robbie's Pies (not verified)

krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/15/crony-keynesianism/

Hopefully this will work

Thu, 2012-10-25 14:02 — Matthew Fox (not verified)

Inastew, have you seen the bad news, this government has closed down production of Ford Transit vans in Southampton?

500 jobs are to go, with another 2,000 jobs from suppliers to go on top, is that part of the rebalancing Cameron is talking about?

Thu, 2012-10-25 13:37 — Derek Robinson (not verified)

Absolute garbage.
A total and absolute attempt to turn the truth around 180 degrees.
Laughable.
The very statement suggesting the coalition hasn't even a small amount of austerity shows you sir are a liar. I suggest you tell that to all the poor souls that have died after being being told they can go back to work.
You sir choose to totally ignore the fact that the economy under Labour had the longest sustained period of stability in any living memory.
This bunch can't even get us the usual Tory boom and bust back in progress .. it's just all bust.
You are not going to get re-elected of that I am sure.

Wed, 2012-10-24 22:18 — SammyW (not verified)

The whole point is that Cameron deliberately misleads the public and fools the gullible.

Out of the true rise in employment the c vast majority of that has been in part-time work. Employers are employing two part-time workers instead of a full time-worker. Part-time workers can be got rid of as the government are taking away their workers rights. It is also cheaper for an employer to employ two part-time workers rather than one full-time worker as the national insurance contributions are cheaper. No paid holiday low paid work. Then the government are going to make it harder for low paid workers to claim working tax credits. From April 6th people working 16 hrs will no longer be able to claim working tax credits, unless they can get another part-time job, or increase their hours, if that's not possible then the government are going to make them poorer by stopping their benefit.

This government are moving towards total domination of low paid workers, when they have that they will star moving up the rungs of the ladder. If people cannot see it now, they pretty soon will when it becomes their turn to be affected.

Wed, 2012-10-24 21:04 — NJ (not verified)

If you don't want him to take undue credit for good news, you should stop unduly lambasting him when there's bad news

Thu, 2012-10-25 13:41 — Derek Robinson (not verified)

Two and a half years of stagnation.
The economy was already turned around before The idiot electorate put this lot into power. Laughable to think that you can pay your bills off when you have no revenue.
Laughable

Wed, 2012-10-24 23:31 — Peter Deville (not verified)

You might want to read that back to yourself. You might find you've written some terrible bollocks that doesn't make sense on any level.

Wed, 2012-10-24 22:17 — Chris J H (not verified)

"take undue credit" is a generous phraseology for "lie"!

Wed, 2012-10-24 20:12 — Michael Dixon (not verified)

Desperate stuff here. An efforst is being made after Brown overloaded the public sector to our great cost.

It was not just the bankers who wasted our money, Cowdenbeath's finest was next in line.

Where is Gordon Brown?

Wed, 2012-10-24 23:34 — Peter Deville (not verified)

Yeah, desperate. Cameron is only claiming to have created nearly twice as many jobs as he actually has. What of it?

Wed, 2012-10-24 22:41 — kenelmist (not verified)

You are desperate if you happily turn a blind eye to such dissembling.

Wed, 2012-10-24 19:40 — LondonStatto (not verified)

You can nitpick about the details, but the gist is that there are fewer public sector jobs and more private sector jobs - with the rise in the private sector being significantly greater than the fall in the public sector.

And that's one of the reasons we elected him.

Wed, 2012-10-24 20:09 — kenelmist (not verified)

Remind me ... who elected him?

Wed, 2012-10-24 19:37 — mamamia (not verified)

I don't think he meant "he has created a million private sector jobs".
I think he means "he has created millions (£) out of private sector jobs!"
What needs to be clearer is where the millions are going?!?

Thu, 2012-10-25 13:45 — trevor21

I think you'll find that all those millions,like little birds, are on the wing to the Cayman Isles never to be seen again and certainly never to be captured by the tax man. This country has been reduced to one big putrid confidence trick,led by the biggest lying scum bag this side of Hell...and the jokes on us.

Wed, 2012-10-24 18:52 — kenelmist (not verified)

Useful piece. But to be honest, these (and other) stats are more or less made up.

Wed, 2012-10-24 21:14 — SammyW (not verified)

Idiot.

Wed, 2012-10-24 18:39 — Des Demona (not verified)

Surprising Milliband didn't pick him up on this at PMQ's

Wed, 2012-10-24 18:33 — Lucidus (not verified)

One topic you don't mention, George, is how many of those jobs were created during the period when the Tory-Lib Dem coalition was in power but their policies hadn't taken effect. Economic growth was steady but unspectacular in 2010. There's been very little growth since the beginning of 2011.

Their first budget was June 2010 and autumn statement later that year. Many of their policies didn't take effect until the financial year beginning April 2011.

Thu, 2012-10-25 00:24 — Indu Pendent

Ludicrus
In 2010 for every £3 collected the government was spending £4. If you take away the government borrowing then the economy was shrinking ... worse than now.

The real economy probably shrank from around 2001 after adjusting for government borrowing.

You can only live on your credit card for a limited time without earning enough money to pay for it

Thu, 2012-10-25 10:21 — Robbie's Pies (not verified)

Please let us know your source for that little statitical gem? To be clear, I want to know how you managed to come to the conclusion that £4 was being spent for every £3 collected.

Thu, 2012-10-25 13:49 — Derek Robinson (not verified)

Gordon Brown could control what was and wasn't spent.
You need to check some of the so called terrible figures with those over the last 50 or so years and you will see they are not in anyway spendthrift especially when the benefits are looked at.
The Tories simply have no control in spending. The only have the same to0l as they always use, blame everyone else and feather your mates nests until you get kicked out again because everyone else is nearing poverty..