Why did Starmer and Badenoch have different job figures?published at 13:40 GMT
13:40 GMT
By Anthony Reuben
At PMQs, Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch traded numbers on
the jobs market.
Badenoch referred to “180,000 jobs lost” while
Starmer said “329,000 people more are in work since the start of this
year”.
They were both right – according to different sets of jobs
figures.
The Tory leader’s figure is for payrolled
employees, external in the UK, which is the number of people doing at least one
job paying tax through Pay As You Earn (PAYE). It has gone down by 180,000 in
the year to October.
That figure – which is provisional – comes from HM Revenue
and Customs, based on tax data.
The PM was referring to a different measure – people
in employment, external overall. The latest figures show a rise of 329,000 when
you take July to September’s data and compare it with the last three months of
2024.
These figures come from the Office for National Statistics
and are based on the Labour Force Survey, which has been suffering from low
response rates, external.
One figure going up while the other goes down could be to do
with something like the number of self-employed people, or it could reflect the
different methodologies used.