The UK Government’s Statistics Office (ONS) is great. They are a really helpful bunch of people. However, the stuff they publish is only as good as the numbers they are being given by other parts of the Government machine.
Their latest release contains two interesting ‘facts’.
‘Fact 1.’
The most significant demographic trend affecting the labour force over the next 15 years is expected to be a 23.5 per cent increase in the number of people aged 50 and over. This is a combined effect of the overall trend towards higher life expectancy as well as the transition of the ‘baby boom’ generation to the 50 and over age group. By contrast, the number of people aged between 16 and 24 will fall by 4.9 per cent.
‘Fact 2.’
Overall, the economic activity rate for working-age people is projected to increase from 78.5 per cent in 2005 to 79.8 per cent in 2020.
The second of these ‘facts’ is pure wishful thinking. Since 20%+ of men over the age of 50+ are classified as being “self employed” – a title that mean just about anything – to predict that the activity level will increase is make-believe. Dick Stroud
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