Thursday 28 August 2008

UK households expect fewer jobs

You are a miserable pessimistic lot!

Each month, the European Commission organizes a survey of household employment expectations. The survey is based on a simple question; households are asked whether they think there will be many or few jobs available in six months’ time.

Some answers will be positive, while some will be negative. In order to construct a meaningful statistic, the EC looks at the net balance. If answers, are generally postive about employment prospects, then the net balance will have a positive number, with higher numbers indicating a more optimistic outlook. Pessimistic answers are characterized by negative numbers.

Well, in the last few months, households have turned really negative about employment. Of course, this is completely consistent with what we know about economic growth, which was flat during the second quarter.

So, all the signs are there; the UK is rapidly sinking into a recession. It will be a recession marked by declining house prices, crushing household sector debt and rising inflation.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

There you go again, talking us into a recession. Think happy thoughts and we'll do fine.

Nick

Anonymous said...

I think Alice you might be the last honest person standing in the UK. We have certainly cornered the market in BS and blather, but it does take the cake what New Labour has been up to these last 11 years. And now the penny has dropped: people realise they have been 'hosed' (a Canadian expression for being shafted). I have moved all my business overseas (and only stay resident in the UK because of my wife's job). I am having more fun and travelling lots. Bliss.