Employment - a look behind the headlines

Yesterday brought some good news on the employment front, as reported by BBC News "The number of people out of work in the UK has fallen to its lowest total for more than a year."

But if you look behind the figures things don't seem that good - take the change in employment over one year in percentage terms:  In employment an increase of 1.8% (513) - of which number of employees rose by 1.3% (319); number of self employed rose by 2.7% (112); number of unpaid family members rose by 4.6% (5) and number in government supported training & employment programmes rose by 86.6% (77). (figures in brackets are in thousands)

And of those, over a year, there was an increase 0.9% (197) in full time employment and an increase of 4% (316) in part time employment. Which can be split further down as follows:

EFT Employed full time - EPT Employed part time, SFT self employed full time - SPT self employed part time. 

Another worrying trend is the increase in number unemployed for more than 12 months:

Finally, regional change in employment since July to September 2011:

and changes in unemployed:

Data from ONS Labour Market Statistics, November 2012

Can we save our high streets?

In the Daily Post today Dylan Jones Evans, Economic adviser to the Welsh Conservative Party, wrote about the ideas put forward by the Welsh Conservatives in a bid to revive our high streets.

As we know even high streets in large cities and towns are struggling, but it's even worse in smaller towns and villages - the percentage of empty shops growing year on year, as more shops close due to either going bankrupt or moving to out of town retail centers.

Then there is the hassle of finding somewhere to park, a lack of choice, poorly maintained streets, tight household budgets and busy lives.

In other words without adequate footfall high streets are doomed to fade away.

And of course you have the large out of town shopping centers, with their big brand names in large convenient stores, with free parking and easy access. All approved by politicians of all parties - who now seem to be concerned about the demise of the high street.

But let me talk about the elephant in the room, in times of austerity, when money is tight, and we all work long hours to make ends meet, our first priority is to find the best price without hassle, and these days a growing trend is....the first place we look is on the world wide web, especially with more and more of us now owning smart phones.

The ONS in their retail sales report for September says the key points on internet sales are:

• The average weekly online spend (Internet sales values non-seasonally adjusted) in September 2012 was estimated to be £507.8 million, which was an increase of 9.4 per cent when compared with September 2011.
• The amount spent online was estimated to account for 8.8 per cent of all retail spending excluding automotive fuel.
• More was spent online in the non-store retailing sector than any other sector. Spending online now accounts for 63.0 per cent of total spending in this sector up from 62.9 per cent in September 2011. In the food sector 3.1 per cent of spending was spent online, up from 2.7 per cent a year earlier. This sector has the lowest proportion of online spend in relation to all spending.

As you can read we still prefer shops for purchase of food items, though more of us are starting to buy online. And we know who dominates the food sector - that would be the supermarkets.

So being realistic any shop on the high street is going to struggle, even specialist shops, unless they can attract the footfall. And one way of doing so is to have a presence on the world wide web, offering a specialised quality service.

Therefore not sure how much tax breaks would really help, after all we would need to raise that money elsewhere - robbing paul to pay peter and all that. As for free parking in town and village centers is a good idea, but whilst paying for parking may discourage some, doubt it's the main problem.

To me the key to saving the high street is proper maintenance of them, a redesign including in many cases making them more car friendly - get rid of pedestrianised zones where they don't work.

But above all seek young entrepreneurs with innovative ideas, and give them support and grants to open shops in their local area. Councils should have powers to take over empty shops and offer them to such entrepreneurs as starter units (like you have with industrial units). And the welsh government should ensure that high street shops have access to fast broadband.

We shall not see the traditional high street again, but that does not mean that it cant adapt and grow and be a place for the next generation of entrepreneurs in niche markets to find their feet and prosper.

Employment in Wales and the bad news for women.

As reported by BBC Wales on Wednesday, the total number of people recorded as being unemployed  in  Wales went up by 2,000 (actually it was around 1,678) in the last quarter to 132,701.

Below is a summary of the headline figures for the last quarter (March-May):

As you can see the number of people employed in Wales fell by 9,055.

If we now look at the figures for men.

You will notice that the number of men unemployed in Wales went down by 4,772 over the last quarter. The number of men aged 16 -64 classed as economically inactive rose by 9,523.

And looking at figures for women:

The number of women unemployed went up by 6,450 over the last quarter.

To help us understand some of the above, ONS say:

Employment measures the number of people in paid work and differs from the number of jobs because some people have more than one job.

Unemployment measures people without a job who have been actively seeking work and are available to start work if a job is offered.

Economically inactive people are not in employment but do not meet the internationally accepted definition of unemployment because they have not been seeking work within the last four weeks and/or they are unable to start work within the next two weeks.

So what can we learn from the above? - I think it shows us that jobs are still being created in the welsh economy, although a growing problem is the number of people out for work for a long time. But what should concern us most, is that the above figures seem to confirm:

Spending cuts will disproportionately affect women: women are more likely to be the beneficiaries and users of public services; and employees in the public sector. (from The Guardian)

The chart below show the percentage of the population claiming job seekers allowance by unitary and local authority:

The chart below show the percentage of the population claiming job seekers allowance by region:

And the percentage change in claimant count by region over one year:

See also: Telegraph - Employment is rising but its not down to job creation.

To download the data for above: ONS Labour Market Statistics, July 2012, and as ever click on image to enlarge.

Ynys Môn and GVA

The Daily Post in a report on Wednesday -  Wylfa B not derailed by power giant pull-out said:

[The pull out by RWE and E.on from investing in nuclear in the UK]....started a scramble to find a new consortium to bail out the development, seen as vital for a county which has the lowest GDP in England and Wales....

In the first place the preferred measure for regions is GVA, in particular GVA per head, and we know from the last issued  GVA figures for regions; from December 2011, that Ynys Môn does not have the lowest GVA per head of population in England and Wales, that would the Gwent Valleys at £10,654.

Which was something I did post about at the time see:  Ynys Môn GVA per head revised figures.

Ynys Môn GVA per head revised figures

We here on Ynys Môn have long being used to the label of poorest region in Wales, if you use GVA per head as a measure.

However, the latest revised figures from ONS shows that for the period 1997 to 2003 the GVA per head for Ynys Môn had been over estimated, whilst for the period between 2004 and 2009 they where under estimated.

The result of this revision means that since 2004 based on NUTS3.2 GVA per head at current basic prices, it has in fact been Gwent Valleys and not Ynys Môn that has the lowest GVA per head in Wales.

As a comparison in Ynys Môn the GVA per head between 1997 and 2009 grew by 5247, whereas for Gwent Valleys and the same period only grew by 2979.

Not surprisingly in 2009 in most regions GVA fell, Ynys Môn by 233 and Gwent Valleys by 344.

I would add my usual disclaimer about using GVA per head to compare regions see Anglesey and GVA

Corrected GVA per head figures.

This week the Office of National Statistics published the verified and corrected GVA figures for 2008. As we know Anglesey has the lowest GVA per head in the UK for sometime.

I have argued previously that the use of GVA per head to compare regions should be done with caution (Anglesey and GVA – The Article), but I’m not about to defend or justify the current figures for Anglesey here. No the reason for this post is to answer the question: Why has Conwy and Denbighshire moved out of the bottom five.

The answer is seems, looking at the above chart is that Sefton, for some reason, has year on year seen it’s GVA per head grow slower than that of Conwy and Denbighshire, replacing them in the bottom five. Whereas Conwy and Denbighshire growth seems slower than the average for Wales, even that of Anglesey as shown in the chart below, showing growth in GVA per head between 2000 and 2008.