- The unemployment rate has risen to 8.4%, the highest since November 1995
- The unemployment rate for 16-24 year olds not in full time education is 20.7%, the highest since comparable records began in 1992 although the Labour Force Survey indicates that there was a higher percentage of 16-24 year olds out of work during the mid 1980s.
- The total unemployed has risen to 2.68 million, the highest number out of work since August 1994
- In November 2011 there were 988000 working days lost to strikes, the worst month for industrial disputes since July 1989
Notice how all of these "the highest since" are from the days of the last Tory government. And the 1994/95 era was hardly the worst of those days either, that was regarded as a period of comparable stability after the dark days of the early 1990s, and nowhere near as bad as the early to mid 1980s. It puts in context how things were then, that whilst we regard things as really bad now, it was about the same as in the better days of old Tory government.
I expect as unemployment worsens those "worst since" comparisons will go to different periods of the Thatcher and Major years.
It also puts in context how good things were in the Blair era, despite what people think of his foreign policy.
