Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables and figures
- Acknowledgements
- List of acronyms
- Part 1 Setting the scene
- Part 2 Benefits for unemployed people
- Part 3 Benefits for disabled people
- Part 4 Benefits for children and families
- Part 5 Benefits for retirement
- Part 6 Towards a welfare class?
- References and further reading
- Index
3 - Trends in claimant unemployment
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 September 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables and figures
- Acknowledgements
- List of acronyms
- Part 1 Setting the scene
- Part 2 Benefits for unemployed people
- Part 3 Benefits for disabled people
- Part 4 Benefits for children and families
- Part 5 Benefits for retirement
- Part 6 Towards a welfare class?
- References and further reading
- Index
Summary
Summary
Unemployment in 1999 was higher than in 1971 despite eight years of economic growth. Claimant unemployment fell to 1.14 million (4%) in 1999 compared with 690,000 (3.3%) in 1971.
Fluctuations in economic conditions and secular changes in the labour force are the main explanations for rising unemployment caseloads, but demographic changes have occasionally exacerbated upward trends.
A key debating issue is the relative importance of individual behaviour and work disincentives created by the benefit system itself in explaining the trends in benefit receipt. The various possibilities are examined in Chapters 4 through to Chapter 8.
The trends
Despite eight years of uninterrupted economic growth, the rate of unemployment in December 1999, as measured by the number of people registering and claiming benefit, was higher than it had been in January 1971 (Figure 3.1). Moreover, the comparison – 3.3% in 1971 and 4.0% in 1999 – is hardly fair, since the earlier figure includes many people (for example, people aged under 18 and men aged over 60) who are no longer considered to be part of the labour market. Furthermore, at the turn of 1971, unemployment had been rising steadily for 18 months from a low point of 498,600 in June 1969, and had reached 690,000. In December 1999, unemployment had fallen to 1.14 million, from a high of 2.96 million in 1993.
Virtually all the changes that have been made in the method of counting unemployment since 1971 have reduced the year-on-year count of unemployment. This means that the official series presented in Figure 3.1a, while accurate as a record of the number of people claiming benefit on account of unemployment, does not truly compare like with like. For this reason, the new Labour government has begun to make more use of the unemployment measure deployed by the International Labour Organisation (ILO). This is based, not on a count of people receiving unemployment-related benefit, but on the reports of respondents to the Labour Force Survey as to whether they consider themselves to be unemployed and seeking work. As is apparent from Figure 3.1b, the ILO measure reveals higher levels of unemployment than are indicated by the unemployment count.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Making of a Welfare Class?Benefit Receipt in Britain, pp. 47 - 52Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2000