The British Office for National Statistics (ONS) recently published an article that showed peak unemployment figures in the UK's last 3 recessions: 1980, 1990, and 2008 - the UK didn't have a recession in 2000 thanks to the WPM.
In the 1980s recession the peak unemployment figure was 12%; in the 1990s it was 10.8%; and in the recent recession it was 8%. The latter was confirmed when June's unemployment figure dipped to 2.46m giving an annualised rate of 7.8%. Let's hope that this is the start of the down trend in unemployment which will signal the start of the recovery in spite of all the doom mongers in the press.
Three points make a straight line: 12, 10.8, 8. The line drawn is downward which means that the Government is either in more control of the situation or has changed it's policy from commodities to people. The line is also similar to the years when placed next to each other: 1980, 1990, 2008.
As you can see, there is a longer gap between 1990 and 2008 (18 years) than between 1980 and 1990 (10 years) which correspond to 2.8 and 1.2 respectively. In other words, a reduction of 1.2 percentage points was achieved in 10 years and 2.8 percentage points was achieved in 18 years. This gives a rate of 0.12% per year in the first 10 years and 0.15% in the 18 years that followed. That's a more aggressive reduction than in the first 10 years.
If this trend continues, then peak unemployment will be around 5.2% after the next recession which is currently the normal level. This means that the new normal level will shift lower so that we can have a normal level of 2.6% and peak at 5.2% for example. This will need closer cooperation between the employers, employees and the government.
One of the WPM's self-imposed goals is to bring the Government and the people closer together. In fact, this aggressive approach to reducing unemployment averted a recession in 2000 which our European and American cousins succumbed to. The fact that this has finally been achieved, implies that the WPM is slowly achieving its goal - one of them anyway.
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