10m now unemployed or on furlough

Almost defending the Govt there .

" There is no right answer " .

 

And me

 

Good call. If you tried that until October you'd be in a right state.

 

There is no right answer. But there are any number of definite wrong answers.

 

If your only joy in life is having a take away then I'm not the one who's a barrel of laughs

 

That they are classified as employed by the Govt and hence outside the figures yes of course that’s what I said originally.

 

Cut corporation tax? Depends on how much corporate dick you want to suck. We already have one of the lowest in Europe and the lowest of the major European economies. 10 years ago it was 28%, now its 19%.

But the Tories are in charge and they love low tax, so we'll probably have more of the last 10 years, more tax avoidance, more corporate welfare etc.

 

Likewise, IIRC* if they’re working less than 16hrs they’re counted in the unemployed number

*not 100% confident how UC counts this, because it was built for users and not data gatherers, but that’s the traditional measure.

 

The introduction of UC changed things. The proliferation of zero hours contracts changed things. You are about 10 years out of date I’m afraid. You can actually work zero hours in a week and be classed as employed. The next week you might work 40. The week after 3. The week after 60. The week after 1. The week after 0. You are classed as employed throughout. You supply real time information to UC if you are claiming it but are always employed

 

From https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentan.../methodologies/aguidetolabourmarketstatistics

3.Employment
The number of people in employment in the UK is measured by the Labour Force Survey (LFS) and consists of people aged 16 years and over who did one hour or more of paid work per week and those who had a job that they were temporarily away from (for example, because they were on holiday or off sick). The largest two categories within employment are employees and self-employed people; in recent years these two categories have accounted for over 99% of all people in employment.

 

There is a difference between counting the employed and counting the unemployed, let’s not try to conflate.

the introduction of UC led the government to start announcing ‘employed’ figures simply because early versions of the UC software were incapable of separating the different groups of claimants (I was training people to pay UC 2015-17). As you’ll know, former working tax credit, Income Support, JSA, ESA and housing benefit only claimants can be on UC - counting eligibility criteria wasn’t a high priority.

however there has recently been a lot more talk of ‘unemployment’ numbers again, I can only assume this is due to improvements in the system.

I’m no expert

 

80% of the fish caught in UK waters (herring, mackerel) is sold into Europe. 80% of the fish we eat in the UK (cod, haddock) is caught in European waters or further afield. There is the potential that we could end up unable to sell the fish we catch and unable to buy the fish we eat. That is one of the reasons that Grimsby has been asking to be made a special case so that their major industry isn't decimated by something they voted for...

We currently have a trade deal with Japan. That deal expires at midnight on 31/12. There is no sign at this moment of a deal between the UK and Japan being signed before then - negotiations have just started and remember Japan is the larger economy in that deal. Any companies (and jobs) in the UK that deal with Japan have a decision to make. They can stay in the UK on the chance that a deal will be signed, or they can move into the EU and continue working on the better terms. COVID has thrown spanners in the works, but with the deals offered to relocate some will to our detriment.

As for companies selling us stuff, they will continue to do so but we will have to pay more for the privilege.

 

Are you. Or indeed anyone.
claiming part of your spouses tax allowance. ( you have to be married)
If so you can claim allowances backdated. Was 2/3 years in my case. ( around £400/500 refund) could claim back to 2015 in my case. Not sure if a time limit applies.
Only applies if your spouse doesn’t pay tax. But to be clear, not working either. Brings in around £200/£250 net pa. ( would have to double check the allowance again but it’s fixed. At around £1300)
Just go on line and claim if not already doing so. ( even easy for a technophobe like me)
Maybe worth creating a new thread . I think I posted this before ( a while ago)

 

I didn’t say it was my only joy, but it’s a small joy in a tsunami of ****.

 

It's always worth mentioning this again (and again) because lots of people may have changed circumstances since the last time it was brought up. And it might not spring to mind with all the other stuff going on.

 

I claim this as my wife pays no tax, well worth claiming

 

I am yes. Thank you though and it probably is worth spreading the word at this time as a few might be entitled to this and unaware.

 

Same here. £250 a year goes some way to covering my season ticket.

 

as a fforner benefit fraud investigations officer neither am I...

See Scoffs post above.

 

Again
I’ve no idea if you’re deliberately trying to be evasive (typical fraud officer) but we do still count unemployment figures, indeed the number of new claims has been rather big news lately.

Worked for fraud from 97 to 2001

we probably met