Number of jobless Brits hits 12-year high with 269k households having never worked
The job numbers haven't looked this bad since just after the global financial crash in 2008.
The number of UK non-student households where the occupants have never worked is the highest it's been in 12 years, according to bombshell new data.
From January to March 2024, there were 269,000 non-student households where none of the adults living there had ever been employed.
That startling figure is the highest since 2012 when the economy was still reeling from the global financial crisis.
Worse still, the new figures are 12 percent higher than at the same time last year, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) - the body which has released the data.
In the first three months of this year, there were 4.3 million 16 to 64-year-olds living in households without any adults in employment.
This is the highest figure for seven years and nearly 300,000 more than the same period in 2023.
Reacting to the scarcely believable statistics, senior Tory MP and GB News presenter Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg told the Telegraph: “If you have people who are not in work, they’re not going to be helping to boost GDP per capita. So it means the state has less money to pay either for tax cuts or public services.
“It also encourages people to make the argument that we need mass migration because there is work that needs to be done and the people who work for us aren’t obviously doing it.”
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The ONS’ Labour Force Survey findings come as Rishi Sunak tries to tell the electorate that the economy is “turning the corner”. The embattled Tory leader yesterday unveiled a tax break for pensioners worth £2.4 billion.
“What I believe is if you work hard all your life you should have dignity in retirement,” Mr Sunak said during a visit to a bowling green in Leicestershire.
He said the “triple lock-plus” would deliver “a tax cut worth around £100 to millions of pensioners, demonstrating our commitment to them”.
Under Labour “pensioners will be paying tax” and “that’s a clear choice on offer”, he said.
The policy will cost £2.4 billion a year by 2029/30 and will be funded by clamping down on tax dodgers – the same pot of money which will help pay for Mr Sunak’s plan for new mandatory national service for 18-year-olds.
Labour said it was a “desperate move” from a party which was “torching” what was left of its claims to economic credibility.
