The UK jobs market is booming, as the latest ONS figures show. Unemployment is at its lowest for over 40 years. A record 32.1 million people are in employment, a rise of over 3 million since the financial crisis.
Apart from in a few scattered pockets, Britain is at full employment. Usually in such circumstances, wages would start to outpace inflation. Labour shortages would lead employers to start bidding for workers, who would themselves feel more confident about demanding pay increases.
Perhaps this is starting to happen, with the TUC voting for a campaign to raise public sector wages by 5 per cent.
But a combination of immigration and a concerted government campaign to get people off benefits means that the supply of labour has risen sharply. This holds down the price of labour, the wage, in the bottom half of the labour market.
Instead, full employment manifests itself in different ways. A few anecdotes might illustrate the key points.
I recently bought a new phone, which has proved to have an intermittent fault. The Richmond branch of EE advertises both on the internet and on its doors that it opens at 9.30am. I turned up at 9.40 to find the place in darkness. I went to another EE branch, where a listless young woman informed me that she could not replace it. I asked what she could do. She replied that she could take it in for repair, but that this “would take three weeks”. I left, and she slumped back to her stupor.
Later that day, I went to see someone at a leading London university. The department receptionist asked if I had the extension number. When I said I was rather hoping he might have it, he responded that he probably did, but that it would be “hard to find”. We looked at each other in silence. Then a light bulb came on in his mind. He winked at me, and pronounced “I’ll take you up there”.
These experiences are not confined to the dynamic capital city. A few weeks ago, I visited the maths department at Durham and left my glasses behind. They offered to post them guaranteed next day delivery. I tracked the parcel on the Royal Mail website. 39 hours later, it had arrived at the Newcastle sorting centre, all of 15 miles away.
These examples of appalling service arise for two reasons. First, the very high demand for labour means that some people now in jobs are scarcely able to perform work at all. Second, many low paid workers realise they can easily get another job, so why bother making an effort in your current one?
Here is part of the answer to the so-called productivity puzzle. During the recovery from a recession, productivity, output per worker, usually rises quickly. But it has been flat.
Whether due to limited ability or a lack of incentive, the output of some workers taken on in the jobs boom is close to zero. And this drags the average down.
