Earlier this week the Prime Minister claimed that “300,000 private sector jobs have already been created over the last 6 months alone”.

While it is correct that employment levels rose between March – September 2010 (although, recent data show that between August – September 2010 there was a 64,000 fall in the employment level)

ONS data on workforce jobs presents a very different picture, showing that across the UK the number of jobs has fallen by 27,000. How can this be?

The Prime Minister’s statement refers to the net change in the number of people in private sector employment between March to September of 2010. The data come from the Labour Force Survey, which is based on responses from households across the country.

This is the last six months we have this data for (although not technically the last six months), and the Prime Minister is correct that over this period employment levels rose considerably, increasing by 312,000 in total (compared to a fall of 59,000 in the number of people employed in the public sector).

ONS don’t publish further information on which industries these private sector staff are working in or what types of work they are doing.

However, ONS’s overall employment data (which represents people working in both the public and private sectors) can be broken down by various other characteristics.

This gives us a good sense of what sorts of jobs these are likely to be. This analysis shows that over the six months in question:

- there was a 62,000 increase in the number of people working full-time, compared to an increase of 162,000 in the number of people working part-time;
- the number of part-time workers who could not find full-time work rose by 79,000;
- 199,000 more people were working as employees while 33,000 more people were working as self-employed and 18,000 more people were working as ‘unpaid family workers’;
- 84,000 more people were in temporary work (with an increase of 55,000 in the number of people in temporary jobs seeking permenant employment).
- So, around 78 per cent of the employment increase can be accounted for by a rise in people working as employees, with the rest a result of self-employment or unpaid jobs. In addition, 64 per cent of the rise comrpises part-time work and 33 per cent of the increase was in temporary employment.

Net change in the number of people in work is not quite the same as net change in jobs, as one person can have many jobs and it’s also possible to be in employment without having an employee job.

So, ONS also publish information on the actual number of jobs that have been created across the economy – data which is based on an employer survey.

It is this survey which shows that over a broadly comparable period (Q1-Q3 2010 rather than March – September 2010) the number of jobs fell by 27,000. Once the public sector is removed from the analysis the picture becomes worse, showing a fall of 52,000 in the number of private sector workforce jobs nationally.

The Prime Minister is right to note that employment levels are increasing – but in future months he may live to regret being quite so positive about the private sector’s potential to create jobs as opposed to low-paid and casual work.

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