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What Do Comparisons Of The Last Two Economic Recoveries Tell Us About The UK Labour Market?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2020

Julian Morgan
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Extract

There are signs that the UK labour market has behaved differently in the most recent economic recovery. After the end of the recession in 1992 unemployment began to fall much earlier than expected, whilst wage and price inflation remained very low. Chart 1 plots unemployment and real wages in the first three years of the last two recoveries. In both cases unemployment rose in the first year of the recovery but thereafter the performance in the 1990s is much better. In the second year, unemployment began to fall significantly, much earlier than it had in the 1980s recovery. Three years after the low point in output the rate of unemployment was around 8½ per cent, 2½ per cent below the level pertaining at the equivalent point in the last cycle. At the same time real wages have shown little growth benefits compared with 4 per cent growth in the 1980s recovery.

Type
Articles
Information
National Institute Economic Review , Volume 156 , May 1996 , pp. 80 - 91
Copyright
Copyright © 1996 National Institute of Economic and Social Research

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Footnotes

∗

This note utilises some material from a project carried out for the Department for Education and Employment (DfEE). However the views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the DfEE. I am grateful to Martin Weale, Ray Barrell and Nigel Pain for helpful comments and David Poulizac for research assistance.

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