The recent jobs figures indicate something truly incredible: Britain now has the highest employment rate of all G7 nations after just overtaking Canada. When other economies are suffering from employment rates falling and still far away from their pre-recession peak, the UK is now 3% higher than in 2007. That might not sound like a lot, but in reality, it's nearly a million extra workers now in work since before the recession that were never included in the unemployment statistics back then.
Don't get me wrong, we have a long way to go. The number of male workers vastly outnumbers the number of female workers and the number of females out of the workforce is nearly double that of men. That's undoubtedly mainly a cultural difference that is still prominent throughout society but it's something we need to fix - the policy to double free childcare is a great start but we need to go even further. It's terrible to be in a situation where it's often cheaper for a mother to stay at home than go to work.
One concern everyone had with the Tories' policy was productivity and wages - rightly so, we never had seen the greatest stagnation in wages and productivity in recorded history. But, this is changing, and with thousands more in work than ever before - likely in low-skill, low-pay jobs - it's understandable that productivity and average pay takes a temporary hit. What we're seeing now is British workers are getting the largest pay rise in a generation as inflation is negative. And, although productivity has been stagnating, it rose by the biggest percentage ever - 0.9% - in just one quarter from March this year.
The UK labour market is certainly one of the strongest in the western world. So when Iain Duncan Smith says 'we want to give people the safety and security of a job' or even Osborne saying the Tories are 'the party of labour' they're not necessarily wrong, especially because of what's going on on the other side of the political spectrum. What seems to be highly underestimate in my view, is the historic strength of the UK's labour market. Pay, unemployment and vacancies all have been incredibly strong in the past 20 years. It is absolutely vital to maintain this strong labour market to not go the way of France with huge over regulation, labour laws and unions and to maintain the influx of skilled migrants that have come to Britain to live a more prosperous life from Eastern Europe. Which is why I think Britain's place in the EU is incredibly important - to not put politicians driven by people's conservative views - the ability to put a stop to this huge economic benefactor. Theresa May's stronger and stronger restrictions on non-EU migrants is doing enough damage as it is.
The first article I posted on this blog came out against the Tories' cuts to tax credits and huge rise in the minimum wage. My opinion hasn't changed much - I still think in-work benefits are vitally important and a high minimum wage is hugely damaging - but, stats show the Tories' reforms to benefits over the past 5 years
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