WHY IS UNEMPLOYMENT FALLING?

Unemployment fell a record 66,000 in May and the total dropped below the symbolic 3 million level for the first time in nearly five years. In June unemployment declined again, for the 12th successive month, and by nearly 300,000 on a year earlier. What is causing this? Is it, as the government claims, the result of improving employment opportunities or, as its critics claim, a combination of statistical trickery and deliberate frightening off the register of those who have given up all hope of getting a job? Our analysis shows that the drop in unemployment last year and in the early months of 1987 owed much to the restart programme and other special measures; more recently there is evidence of strong employment growth.