Answer, when interpreting unemployment figures.
According to the Office for National Statistics unemployment has fallen by 65,000 but still stands at 2.58 million.
Employment has risen by 188,000 with 133,000 being full-time jobs but all is not what it seems. 32,000 of these are self-employed, but are probably not a new generation of entrepreneurs, more likely people who have decided to earn a living in whatever way they can.
More worryingly the figures also include 42,000 people who have enrolled for Government training schemes who are not technically unemployed even though they may still be in receipt of benefit. A further 11,000 are in family unpaid jobs.
If the Olympics were supposed to be a stimulus for jobs there seems little indication of this in the figures.
The fact is that pessimism is rife and very few employers are prepared to invest in either business or people.
