Unemployment

Spain’s recent economic expansion means little to young Spaniards. Many are angry with the country’s tirelessly corrupt politicians, and are unable to pursue rewarding careers in their own country. Despite three-and-a-half years of GDP growth at one of the fastest rates in the eurozone, Spain still has the second highest unemployment rate in the EU, at 18 per cent. More than 40 per cent of Spaniards aged between 16 and 25 are without jobs, while others struggle on temporary contracts with low salaries — or move abroad to find better work. Does this all mean that Spain suffering is from a ‘lost generation’ of youngsters who are struggling to fulfil their potential?

There's more doom and gloom for households today as new figures reveal the first decline in real earnings since September 2014. According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), earnings growth slowed in the three months to March, at 2.1 per cent, compared to previous data which showed wages, excluding bonuses, grew at 2.2 per cent. This compares to inflation which jumped to 2.7 per cent in April. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate dropped to 4.6 per cent in the three months to March, and is now at its lowest rate since 1975. It was previously 4.7 per cent. It means that 1.54 million people are currently unemployed.

More Brits then ever are now in work, with the proportion of the working age population in jobs hitting 74.6 per cent at the end of 2016. Good news such as this about Britain’s job market has become ‘almost mundane’, says the Daily Telegraph. But even in this climate of healthy jobs figures, these latest numbers are worthy of attention. For the Telegraph, this is a 'vivid reminder that Britain’s flexible labour market has weathered all the recent storms’. Talk about joblessness and unemployment used to dominate the headlines. But no more; ‘the conversation’ now is more ‘about the nature of those jobs’. Talk of the ‘gig economy’ in particular is much discussed.

It is a long time since the term ‘sick man of Europe’ could be applied to Britain. France is now a worthier candidate for the accolade — it -increasingly resembles a tribute act to 1970s Britain. A package of modest labour-market reforms presented by a socialist president has provoked national strikes on the railways and Air France. This week, the streets of Paris resembled one big Grunwick or Saltley Gate — the trials of strength between employer and union in which so many of Britain’s most bolshy trade unionists cut their teeth. This week is not a one-off: in recent years France has had a strike rate more than twice that of Denmark, its nearest European competitor. Britain now looks a paradigm of -industrial virtue by comparison.

The unemployment rate fell to 5.1 per cent in the three months to November, putting it at the lowest level since 2006 – and back to its average over the six years before the crisis. Back to what the Bank of England regards as the "equilibrium" rate. [datawrapper chart="http://static.spectator.co.uk/DUFV6/index.html"] The other side of the coin is that pay growth is down too. Excluding bonuses it's fallen to a sluggish 1.9 per cent year-on-year, around half its pre-crisis rate. Workers’ spending power is still growing – but that's driven by low inflation. [datawrapper chart="http://static.spectator.co.uk/u0fNr/index.

David Prior (Lord Prior of Brampton) is no toff, he’s a modest man. He had a career in merchant banking then another in the steel industry. In his previous Parliamentary incarnation he was a diligent constituency Member for a not very affluent part of Norfolk. Like most Parliamentarians, he was a good deal closer to ‘real people’ than any departmental officials, journalists, special advisers or spin-doctors. Leaving The House hors de combat in 2001, he pursued a thoughtful and blameless life in the NHS and in education. Now he is a Health Minister. He knows about statistics. David Freud (Baron Freud of Eastry) is also a modest man. Great grandson of Sigmund, he carved a career first in journalism – as Lex in the FT for four years.

One of the government’s big achievements has been helping people off benefits and back into work. But the latest stage in the reforms – the proposed changes to the Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) – would be a mistake. Far from encouraging sick people back to work, it might encourage them to stay on benefits. That’s why I’m proposing a change to the Welfare Reform and Work Bill. At the moment, ill people who might gradually return to work receive the Work Related Activity Group (WRAG) payment of £102.15. This is a little bit higher than the standard Job Seekers’ Allowance (JSA): the extra money pays for the additional costs which hit people with long-term illnesses – higher energy bills, for instance.

Asked to name Britain’s greatest living industrial designer, most people might cite Sir Jony Ive of Apple or Sir James Dyson of the bagless vacuum cleaner. I’d certainly shortlist Ive, but I traded in my unreliable Dyson for a brutally efficient German machine called a Sebo and I’ve always thought Sir James was overhyped. I might also mention Dumfries-born Ian Callum, the director of design for Jaguar cars responsible for the sleek F-Type. But surely the top prize must go to Andrew Ritchie, the former landscape gardener whose one perfect product, the Brompton folding bicycle, first sketched in his South Kensington flat 40 years ago, has never been bettered or even precisely replicated by any other manufacturer around the world.

Home The Metropolitan Police encouraged people to celebrate VJ Day despite reports in the Mail on Sunday (picked up from an investigation by Sky News) of plans by Islamic State commanders to blow up the Queen. The RMT union announced two more strikes on the London Underground for the last week in August. Network Rail was fined £2 million by the rail regulator for delays in 2014-15, many of them at London Bridge. A tanker carrying propane gas caught fire on the M56 motorway near Chester. England won the Ashes series after beating Australia by an innings and 78 runs at Trent Bridge; Australia had been bowled out for 60 before lunch on the first day. Unemployment rose by 25,000 in the second quarter to 1.85 million.

Home The government postponed a Commons vote on relaxing the Hunting Act in England and Wales after the Scottish National Party said it would oppose the changes. Scottish police admitted that a crashed car off the M9, reported to them on a Sunday, was not examined until the Wednesday, when one of the two passengers inside it was still alive. She died three days later. A case of H7N7 bird flu was found at a poultry farm near Preston, Lancashire, where 170,000 chickens were slaughtered. British people were being urged by the Foreign Office to leave Tunisia because ‘a further terrorist attack is highly likely’. Up to 5,000 were flown home.