Four Years of Rising Unemployment Under Four Different Governments

Britain’s unemployment rate has climbed to 4.8%, reaching levels not seen since 2021. This happened in just three months. While politicians across the spectrum have spent the past four years promising economic renewal, the data reveals something simpler: fewer people are finding work, and those who do are earning less in real terms than their promises suggested.

The Office for National Statistics reports that average regular earnings growth fell to 4.7% in the three months to August. For context, inflation has been running higher. The mathematics is straightforward: wages are rising slower than prices, which means living standards are falling. This is not economic growth. This is managed decline with better branding.

What The Data Actually Shows

The unemployment increase was driven primarily by younger workers. Meanwhile, record numbers of over-65s remain in employment. This is not a sign of elderly vitality. This is what happens when pension provisions prove inadequate and state retirement age keeps moving further away. People work into their late 60s not because they want to, but because they have to.

The ONS itself warns these figures should be “treated with caution” as it continues overhauling its labour market survey. Even the institution responsible for measuring Britain’s economic health admits its measurement tools are broken and require fundamental rebuilding. The symbolism is almost too perfect.

Payroll numbers tell a contradictory story: up 10,000 between July and August, but early estimates suggest a 10,000 drop in September, landing at 30.3 million. The jobs market is not recovering or growing. It is oscillating around stagnation, with each monthly figure effectively cancelling out the previous one.

The Pattern That Keeps Repeating

This is the fourth year of rising unemployment. Four years means four different governments have presided over this trend: the final year of Johnson’s administration, Sunak’s entire tenure, and now the opening months of Starmer’s Labour government.

The Conservative government promised economic competence and growth. Unemployment rose.

Labour promised economic competence and growth. Unemployment continues rising.

The problem is not which party holds power. The problem is that British economic policy operates within such narrow parameters that changing the governing party changes almost nothing about actual economic outcomes. Different politicians, same institutional failures, predictable results.

What Business Leaders Actually Fear

British businesses cite “fears of tax hikes in Rachel Reeves’ upcoming budget” as a cause for weak growth and poor employment numbers. This phrasing deserves examination. Businesses are not reacting to actual tax policy. They are reacting to anticipated tax policy. The uncertainty itself has become the problem.

This is what economic policy looks like when a government simultaneously promises fiscal responsibility, increased public investment, and no major tax increases on “working people.” The mathematics does not work. Businesses know this. Markets know this. The only people pretending otherwise are politicians who need to maintain the fiction until after the budget announcement.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies now suggests a one-off wealth tax might provide the revenue the Chancellor needs. The government faces an estimated £50 billion black hole in public finances. This figure keeps growing because the underlying economic model keeps failing to generate the growth that would make the numbers add up.

The Reality For Citizens

If you are under 30 and looking for work, you are statistically more likely to be unemployed than you were three months ago. If you have a job, your wages are growing slower than prices, meaning you can afford less than you could before. If you are over 65 and still working, it is increasingly likely this is economic necessity rather than choice.

Retail sales growth slowed in September. Food sales rose 4.3% year-on-year, but the British Retail Consortium notes this was “driven largely by inflation rather than volume growth.” Translation: people are spending more money to buy the same amount of food, or spending the same money to buy less food. This is not economic health. This is the statistical profile of declining living standards.

The Institutional Response

The government’s response to rising unemployment and falling real wages is to discuss wealth taxes and warn of difficult budget choices ahead. This is not a policy framework. This is crisis management disguised as governance.

Labour won the election promising economic growth and improved living standards. Five months later, unemployment is at a four-year high and earnings growth cannot keep pace with inflation. The gap between what was promised and what is being delivered is not subtle. It is measurable in official government statistics.

The Conservative opposition will attack these numbers as proof of Labour’s economic incompetence. They will be correct about the outcomes and completely dishonest about the causes, given their own record of presiding over the same deteriorating trends. This is British political debate in 2025: two parties arguing over who should be blamed for managing the same decline slightly differently.

What This Reveals About Britain’s Economic Reality

The UK economy is not growing fast enough to generate the employment or wage increases needed to raise living standards. This has been true under Conservative governments. It remains true under a Labour government. The problem is not primarily about political management. The problem is structural.

British productivity growth has been stagnant for over a decade. Investment in infrastructure, skills, and research lags behind comparable economies. The political system oscillates between two parties offering marginally different versions of the same basic economic approach, neither of which addresses the fundamental productivity crisis.

Unemployment at a four-year high is not a temporary blip or a statistical anomaly. It is the continuation of a trend that persists regardless of which party controls government. The consistency of the pattern is the story. Four years of rising unemployment under four governments tells you everything you need to know about whether changing the politicians changes the outcomes.

The Uncomfortable Truth

Britain has a system where politicians promise economic renewal while presiding over economic stagnation. Where employment numbers weaken regardless of who wins elections. Where the institutions responsible for measuring economic health admit their measurement tools are broken. Where businesses cite fear of hypothetical future tax policy as justification for not hiring today.

This is not a temporary downturn requiring patient management. This is what institutional decline looks like when measured in employment statistics and wage growth figures. The numbers are going in the wrong direction. They have been going in the wrong direction for four years. And the proposed solutions consist mainly of tax increases and warnings about difficult choices.

The British public were promised economic competence and growth. They are receiving unemployment at four-year highs and falling real wages. The gap between promise and delivery is not a matter of interpretation. It is a matter of arithmetic.

The Decliner – Documenting Britain’s descent, one statistic at a time.