Throughout the crisis sensationalist claims have emerged on both the right and the left that the crisis would lead to a catastrophic and immediate rise in joblessness or, conversely, that it is really not that bad. This article examines exactly what has, and what hasn’t, happened to the labour market during the latest recession and how this compares to the labour market impact of previous crises.
Large quarterly falls in employment in the first half of 2009 led commentators to predict a jobless total exceeding 3 million by the end of that year.