Data now shows that
- Average weekly earningsfor employees increased by 4.0 per cent compared with a year earlier – growing by 2.1 per cent after adjusting for inflation – meaning people have more money in their pockets.
- There are a record number of people working full-time(24.17 million – 74 per cent of the workforce). This has increased by 2.95 million since 2010.
- 32.78 million are now employed (up 369,000 over the last year and up by 3.73 million since 2010).
- A joint record high employment rateof 76.1 per cent (up 0.6 points over the past year and up 5.9 points since 2010).
- Unemployment sits at 1.29 million (down 64,000 over the past year and down by 1.22 million since 2010).
- Unemployment rate is now 3.8 per cent (down 0.2 points over the past year and down 4.2 points since 2010) –more than halving since 2010 (8.0 per cent).
- There are 451,000 fewer young people out of worksince 2010 – almost halving since 2010.
- The number of women in workis 15.52 million – and the employment rate for women is at a record high of 72.1 per cent. There are 1.89 million more women in work since 2010.
Stewart Harper, the Conservative Party’s Parliamentary Candidate for North West Leeds and Otley commented
“It is extremely positive to see that the employment rate is now at a joint record high and there are more people than ever before with a full-time job, giving more families the security of a regular wage.
“A Conservative government would allow us to get Brexit done and move the country forward so we focus on things that matter to people –20,000 more police officers, more funding for schools and making sure people see more investment in the front line of our NHS.
“Labour mean more dither and delay on Brexit whilst their economic plans would wreck the economy – leaving us with more debt, higher taxes and fewer jobs, hurting the people they claim to help the most.”
The government is also helping families with the cost of living so they have more money in their pockets:
- The Resolution Foundation found that the proportion of jobs that are low paid is at the lowest level since 1986 thanks in part to our National Living Wage. They found that the National Living Wage has ‘pushed up hourly pay… In 2016 the proportion of employees on low pay fell below 20 per cent for the first time since 1986’ (Resolution Foundation, Low Pay Britain 2019, 30 May 2019, link).
- We have increased the personal allowance to £12,500 a year early so that people can keep more of what they earn. We have cut income tax for 32 million people and taken 1.74 million people out of paying tax altogether. An average rate taxpayer is paying £1,205 less tax this year than in 2010-11 (HMT, Budget 2018, 29 October 2018, link).
- We are spending a record £6 billion on childcare support to help families with the cost of living. We are investing more than any other government in childcare, including £3.5 billion on early education entitlements this year alone
(Parliament, WQ226095, 4 March 2019, link).
Stewart Harper commented “Labour would wreck our economy putting our vital public services at risk. They are proposing more than 20 new tax hikes ranging from income tax and inheritance tax to a garden tax and a new gifts tax. This would hit investment and raise the cost of living – damaging the economy and putting at risk the money we need to fund our vital public services (The Sun, 4 June 2019, link).”
