Blinded by flash estimates

Employment in the UK is lower than before the pandemic.

The Prime Minister has made repeated claims about employment in the United Kingdom. Boris Johnson MP (Conservative, Uxbridge and South Ruislip) has said:

• “There are now more people in work in this country…than they were before the pandemic began.” (24th November 2021)
• “We’ve now got more people in work than there were before the pandemic began.” (5th January 2022)
• “It is an astonishing fact that we have 420,000 more people in work now than before the pandemic began.” (12th January 2022)
• “We now have 420,000 more people in employment than there were before the pandemic began.” (18th January 2022)

This is false. For November to January 2022, there was an estimated 32.5 million people in employment. That level is lower than in December to February 2020, where it was about 33.1 million people.

This is a survey estimate, which can differ from the true value for many reasons. For the figure of 32.5 million people, there is sampling variability of about 198,000 people. The confidence interval for the employment level is from 32.295 million to 32.691 million.

For the employment rate, that variability is about 0.5 points, surrounding an estimate of 75.6%. This rate is the proportion of people aged 16 to 64 who are in work. The confidence interval for the employment rate ranges from 75.1% to 76.1%.