Assessing Labour on jobs and benefits

"The only history the Coalition seems interested in is its own distorted view of Labour's recent record in office — which it uses repeatedly to justify its new approach. So those 13 years bear some re-examination. On the plus side, employment hit record highs, the claimant count halved and poverty fell. The lone parent employment rate rose by 11 percentage points and youth and long-term unemployment tumbled."

Douglas Alexander, Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, Independent on Sunday, 7 November 2010

Background

As the Government prepares to launch its welfare plans this week, Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Douglas Alexander has hit out at coalition ministers, accusing them of misrepresenting Labour's record on employment and benefits.

In both a speech to the Institute for Public Policy Research, and in the Independent on Sunday, he made a series of claims about Labour's period in office, in order to challenge the "distorted" picture painted by ministers, and thus set the record straight.

So did he?

Record employment

Looking at the figures* from the Labour Force Survey going back to the 1970s it seems there is reason to doubt this claim.

In numeric terms the number of people in employment hit a high of 29.4 million — a figure not recorded in any previous year in a dataset going back to 1984.

But looking instead at percentages a different picture emerges. During the Labour years, the employment rate for all people over the age of 16 hit a high of 60.3 per cent in March 2008.

However this was trumped by the 61.1 per cent seen back in March 1973.

In terms of working age population (16-64), the figures also show that at no time under Labour did the employment rate top the 74.6 per cent recorded in 1990.

Claimant Count

Full Fact has previously found, when comparing the recent recession with that of the early 1990s, that unemployment measured by the claimant count was roughly half the level it had been. But what happened to the numbers between 1997 and 2010?

The seasonally adjusted monthly data* shows a claimant count of 1,619,600 in May 1997, and by May 2010, this was only down to 1.480,900.

But in fairness to Mr Alexander, Labour's low point for claimant count unemployment came in March 2008, where a figure of 780,100 was recorded — less than half the 1997 level.

Poverty

Despite the debate over the best definition to use when measuring poverty, if we take a fairly straightforward look at the array of measures, there are statistics that seem to back up Mr Alexander.

Using the definition of relative poverty as having an income below 60 per cent of the median income, figures from the Department for Work and Pensions (see p58) show that the percentage of individuals below this threshold fell by one per cent between 1998/9 and 2008/9.

Lone parent employment

The lone-parent figures we were directed towards by the Office of National Statistics (see table 4) suggest that if anything, the Labour MP has slightly underestimated this rise in employment.

Figures show that between April-June 1997 a lone parent employment rate of 44.7 per cent was recorded. For the same period in 2009 the rate was 56.7 per cent, and for the relevant months this year (during which Labour lost the election) there was an employment rate of 57.2 per cent.

Both these rates are more than 11 percentage points higher than the 1997 level.

Long term unemployment

Taking the time after which someone becomes classed as being in long term unemployment as 12 months, this measure can be seen to have fallen during Labour's time in office.

The figures compiled by the Office of National Statistics* show record a long term unemployment rate of 35.5 per cent in 1997, which fell to 20 per cent in 2004, before rising again to 24.4 per cent in 2009.

However the most recent montly data for 2010, shows that the rate is creeping back up to the level Labour inherited. In July, the figure stood at 33.4 per cent.

Youth Unemployment

The widely reported jump in youth unemployment to record levels at the tail end of the Labour government, might leave this particular claim sounding a little odd.

Unemployment among 18-24 year olds was over 17 per cent by the time Labour left office, compared to a rate of 12.9 per cent in 1997.

Even looking at the pre-recession situation, there had not been much of a fall.

Taking things up to 2008, the annual figures show that while youth unemployment did indeed "tumble" from 12.9 to 10.4 per cent between 1997 and 2000, this was back up at 12.2 per cent in 2007- the last year when the economy was still growing.

Conclusion

Breaking down the quotation above, while it may offer an impressive sounding account of the Labour years, there is a reason to quibble with almost all of the claims made.

The claimant count, youth and long-term unemployment were all falling in the years immediate prior to 1997, and were rising again, before the economy began to shrink.

Likewise the figures we have seen challenge the notion that the employment rates seen under Labour represented the highest ever recorded, even if the numbers were higher.

There is less to argue against the poverty and lone-parent employment claims, but the general impression of the claim is one that ignores some significant caveats.

This week it seems likely that much of the Opposition's response to the welfare proposals will be dominated by claims like these.

Full Fact will be watching to make sure the figures are kept in context however fractious the debate gets.

*All the data not linked to in this article can be found via downloadable spreadsheets on the Office for National Statistics website in the 'Time Series Data' for Labour market statistics.