MORE THAN one in eight jobs has disappeared since the bubble burst. No other rich country has experienced such an employment shock.
Yesterday’s Quarterly National Household Survey shows that employment continued to shrink in the second quarter of the year, albeit at a slower pace than recently.
Among the most interesting findings of the survey is that the Government’s public sector hiring freeze is nowhere to be seen in the numbers.
As the graphic shows, three of the four sectors to have registered net gains in employment since the number of jobs in the economy peaked in late 2007 are those dominated by the public sector.
The numbers employed in health, education and the public bureaucracy were, amazingly, higher in the first quarter of 2010 than when the Government was asleep at the wheel in 2007 as crisis loomed.
Nor is there any sign even in the most recent quarter that natural wastage is running its course. In the April-June period, all three sectors registered quarter-on-quarter increases in jobs. Given that between 6,000 and 7,000 people retire from the public sector each year on average, it is difficult to see how the numbers in the three sectors combined could actually be 10,000 higher in the second quarter of 2010 than at the beginning of 2009, unless the hiring freeze is being ignored or circumvented.
Another sector continues to defy gravity. In the “financial services, insurance and real estate” category, there were 103,000 employed in the second quarter. This was down slightly quarter on quarter, but remained higher than three years ago when the lending and real estate frenzies were at their most intense.
The only industry where private activity dominates and which continued to generate jobs during the slump was the technology and communications sector, and even that has been static in recent quarters.
The retail and wholesale business showed signs of a jobs recovery in the first half of the year. In the January-March period, net employment stabilised; in April-June, it rose by 2,000 quarter on quarter.
But it is too soon to hang out the bunting. Monthly retail sales figures into the third quarter slipped back, suggesting there was no stampede back to the shops over the summer.
Storekeepers are unlikely to be hiring much until the run-in to Christmas.
There were angry people on Pat Kenny’s Frontline show on Monday. Some had lost their businesses. Their plight is commonplace, yesterday’s survey shows. The numbers who work for themselves and employ others continues to fall. Another net 2,000 business people gave up the ghost in the second quarter on the previous three months. They now number fewer than 100,000, down from almost 127,000 in 2007.
Sole traders have fared little better. Those described as “self-employed, without employees” numbered 208,000 in the second quarter. That is almost 30,000 fewer than in 2007.
No wonder that there are lots of angry and desperate people about.