ABSTRACT
Central to these arguments have been questions about what the unemployment figures actually mean-and particularly questions about whether falls in the figures represent real drops in unemployment, or whether they are simply the product of changes in the way the count is compiled. That there have been repeated changes in the measurement of unemployment since 1979 is widely known, and many people believe that successive Conservative governments have simply fiddled the figures for political reasons. This view is substantially correct, but is incomplete. This chapter looks at the changes in the most familiar measure of unemployment. It shows that this seriously underestimates the number of people without work, and that the progressive changes make it virtually useless as an indicator of whether or not unemployment is actually rising or falling. It also raises questions about recent calls to base the headline count of unemployment on the LFS rather than the claimant count.
