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Rachel Reeves has been telling the public that Labour has “created 384,000 more jobs” in its first year — and the “foundations” of the economy are fixed.
But it’s just a story that she’s telling us.
The way she counts those jobs tells us far more about political spin than about the state of the economy.
The figure comes from the Office for National Statistics and its ‘Workforce Jobs’ series, which counts positions, not people.
If you have two part-time jobs, you’re counted twice.
That means a rise in jobs can happen even if fewer individuals are working — for example, if more people are juggling second jobs to make ends meet.
That is exactly what’s happening here. The government’s own PAYE (Pay As You Earn) payroll data, which counts actual people in employee jobs, shows the opposite: 164,000–178,000 fewer people on payrolls than a year ago, and five consecutive months of decline.*
Vacancies have been falling for years, and unemployment has risen to 4.7 per cent, the highest since 2021.
If the strongest-sounding number in Reeves’ speech is based on such selective framing, what does that say about the rest of her claims?
Wages “growing faster than in the Tories’ first decade”
Wages grew faster in our first 10 months in power than the first 10 years of Conservatives
Yes, wages have risen in real terms over the past year — but the comparison is with the weakest decade for UK pay growth in modern history. It’s a low bar.
And when you factor inflation in, it almost disappears altogether.
Real wage growth was between one per cent and 1.5 per cent in the first half of 2025 – far from enough to offset decades of wage stagnation, housing crunches, and cost-of-living pressures.
The poorest households are still worse off than before the pandemic, and the pay growth streak has already begun to slow.
“Trade deals with the US, India and EU”
Trade deals [have] now [been] struck with the United States, India and the European Union
The India Free Trade Agreement exists and the EU agreement is a modest co-operation pact.
The US “deal” is not a free trade agreement — it’s a bundle of market access changes and regulatory co-operation agreements.
It may be politically useful to lump them together, but they are economically very different in scope and impact.
“Lower mortgage costs than when we were elected”
The cost of a representative new variable rate mortgage [is now] lower than when we were elected
Variable mortgage rates have fallen slightly as the Bank of England cut rates.
But they remain far above 2021 levels, and affordability is still stretched.
For many borrowers, monthly costs are still hundreds of pounds higher than three years ago.
“Millions got a pay rise from the minimum wage”
Millions of working people [are] getting a pay rise from a boost to the national minimum wage
This one is true: the minimum wage rose in April.
But a higher hourly rate doesn’t guarantee higher income if employers cut hours, and it doesn’t help those outside the minimum wage bracket.
This Writer has a friend working in a supermarket. He said the hourly pay rise he has received looks great – until one considers the actual number of working hours he is given. And he’s expected to work harder, to get everything done in less time.
“Unblocking planning and cutting red tape”
[We are] breaking down the planning system to get Britain building, cutting the unnecessary red tape that has stifled innovation
The government has announced planning reforms and infrastructure bills.
But most are still in the legislative or policy stage, and the Office for Budget Responsibility expects the total GDP gain by 2030 to be just 0.2 per cent.
The jury is still out on whether these changes will transform growth.
A pattern of selective metrics
The “jobs created” line shows the method: pick the definition that flatters the most, leave out the less flattering twin, and hope the public doesn’t look too closely.
In each case, Reeves chooses a time frame, metric or label that makes the story seem better than the underlying data.
That’s not the same as fixing the foundations of the economy — it’s only fixing the presentation.
Until one job pays enough to live on, until wage growth is genuinely broad-based, and until employment gains show up in the number of people working rather than the number of jobs counted, “more jobs” is not a triumph- it’s a warning.
*In fairness, the Labour Force Survey shows an increase in self-employment, of around 70,000. Put that together with the payroll drop and only (only?) 110,000 more people are out of work.
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Rachel Reeves’s jobs boast is spin – and so are her other claims
Share this post:
Rachel Reeves has been telling the public that Labour has “created 384,000 more jobs” in its first year — and the “foundations” of the economy are fixed.
But it’s just a story that she’s telling us.
The way she counts those jobs tells us far more about political spin than about the state of the economy.
The figure comes from the Office for National Statistics and its ‘Workforce Jobs’ series, which counts positions, not people.
If you have two part-time jobs, you’re counted twice.
That means a rise in jobs can happen even if fewer individuals are working — for example, if more people are juggling second jobs to make ends meet.
That is exactly what’s happening here. The government’s own PAYE (Pay As You Earn) payroll data, which counts actual people in employee jobs, shows the opposite: 164,000–178,000 fewer people on payrolls than a year ago, and five consecutive months of decline.*
Vacancies have been falling for years, and unemployment has risen to 4.7 per cent, the highest since 2021.
If the strongest-sounding number in Reeves’ speech is based on such selective framing, what does that say about the rest of her claims?
Wages “growing faster than in the Tories’ first decade”
Yes, wages have risen in real terms over the past year — but the comparison is with the weakest decade for UK pay growth in modern history. It’s a low bar.
And when you factor inflation in, it almost disappears altogether.
Real wage growth was between one per cent and 1.5 per cent in the first half of 2025 – far from enough to offset decades of wage stagnation, housing crunches, and cost-of-living pressures.
The poorest households are still worse off than before the pandemic, and the pay growth streak has already begun to slow.
“Trade deals with the US, India and EU”
The India Free Trade Agreement exists and the EU agreement is a modest co-operation pact.
The US “deal” is not a free trade agreement — it’s a bundle of market access changes and regulatory co-operation agreements.
It may be politically useful to lump them together, but they are economically very different in scope and impact.
“Lower mortgage costs than when we were elected”
Variable mortgage rates have fallen slightly as the Bank of England cut rates.
But they remain far above 2021 levels, and affordability is still stretched.
For many borrowers, monthly costs are still hundreds of pounds higher than three years ago.
“Millions got a pay rise from the minimum wage”
This one is true: the minimum wage rose in April.
But a higher hourly rate doesn’t guarantee higher income if employers cut hours, and it doesn’t help those outside the minimum wage bracket.
This Writer has a friend working in a supermarket. He said the hourly pay rise he has received looks great – until one considers the actual number of working hours he is given. And he’s expected to work harder, to get everything done in less time.
“Unblocking planning and cutting red tape”
The government has announced planning reforms and infrastructure bills.
But most are still in the legislative or policy stage, and the Office for Budget Responsibility expects the total GDP gain by 2030 to be just 0.2 per cent.
The jury is still out on whether these changes will transform growth.
A pattern of selective metrics
The “jobs created” line shows the method: pick the definition that flatters the most, leave out the less flattering twin, and hope the public doesn’t look too closely.
In each case, Reeves chooses a time frame, metric or label that makes the story seem better than the underlying data.
That’s not the same as fixing the foundations of the economy — it’s only fixing the presentation.
Until one job pays enough to live on, until wage growth is genuinely broad-based, and until employment gains show up in the number of people working rather than the number of jobs counted, “more jobs” is not a triumph- it’s a warning.
*In fairness, the Labour Force Survey shows an increase in self-employment, of around 70,000. Put that together with the payroll drop and only (only?) 110,000 more people are out of work.
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