Britain: Unemployment Rate Is Six Times Higher Than Official Figures

[Nomad559]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=475517&in_page_id=1770

Nearly ten million people in Britain are out of work - more than six times the official unemployment rate - it was revealed last night.

The 'hidden army' of jobless accounts for a quarter of the working-age population. Critics said the staggering numbers represented a 'huge pool of wasted talent' and fuelled concerns about the drain on the economy.

The details are buried in the quarterly release of jobs figures from the Office of National Statistics published yesterday. Ministers yesterday trumpeted the headline unemployment figure for June of 1.65million - a 45,000 fall from three months earlier.

But in the small print, the ONS figures reveal that the real total is 9.6million, because a further 7.95million people in Britain are classed merely as 'economically inactive'.

[slackmaster]

1. Awwwwwwwk, free health care, free health care, awwwwwwwwwk

[rurallib]

2. Really wonder what true unemployment is in the US.

I have heard as much as 11%.

[tom_paine]

3. Agreed that Bushevik Labor and Employment Reports are about as believable

as a 1978 Soviet Agriculture and Toilet Paper Production Report.

[3waygeek]

5. It's at least 20 more than it was yesterday...

half my company (including myself) was laid off today.

[greyghost]

7. Welcome to the club...

As was I, and half the small company I worked for.

[Igel]

4. That's one scary set of assumptions, isn't it? n/t

[Prophet 451]

6. Doesn't surpirse me

Since Thatcher's decimation of our manufacturing base and the resultant need to "massage" unemployment figures, Blair just continued the job.