The post you are reporting:
Barry, thought I'd put you more into perspective. Recently, when I noted that in the 3 months up tp September '10 there were, according to the Office for National Statistics, 457,000 job vacancies in Britain, you replied stating that these were the vacancies with Jobcentreplus.
I answered that this is not the case. The Statistics office mentioned would not be so naive!
In the three months leading to October, the vacancies are 454,000, which is 27,000 down on the quarterly figure (and 3,000 down on the previous month). The Office for National Statistics is the major official statistic source compiled by the Government.
Unless you can prove otherwise with official statistics, the job vacancies in the 3 months leading to October 2010 are 454,000. It's pointless trying to give people an opinion of the job-market that clearly does not correspond to reality.
The official number of unemployed in the UK is 2.45 million, but the Government has openly noted that it considers the actual figure to be over 5 million, including many who are on incapacity benefits and do not come in the unemployed statistics.
The Government in the person of IDS say that 500,000 people on incapacity benefits could find work straight away, and that hundreds of thousands of others on incapacity benefits could find work with a little extra help!!!.
IDS however does not explain how all these plus the 2.45 million officially unemployed can get a job with only 454.000 vacancies, and that considering that well over 70 per cent of vacancies go to immigrants.
Please don't reply saying that IDS figures refer to the whole world! They refer to Britain.