The Labour party has never left government with unemployment lower than when it came in.
This is true of most Labour governments, including the two most recent examples which both saw unemployment increase, according to current data. But historic unemployment data, while not directly comparable with current data, suggests there’s at least one exception, with unemployment falling during the Labour minority government of 1924.
“Labour has never left government with unemployment lower than when it came in.”
“There's never been a Labour government that hasn't left unemployment higher in history.”
This week, both energy secretary Grant Shapps and his fellow Conservative MP Mark Pawsey have claimed that no Labour government has ever left office with unemployment lower than when it entered.
Mr Pawsey made this claim during this week’s Prime Minister’s Questions on 14 June, while Mr Shapps said it during an interview on Sky News on 11 June.
This isn’t the first time this claim has been made, and as we explained when another Conservative MP said this back in 2021, it’s not quite true if you look at historic data stretching back to the first part of the 20th century.
Politicians should ensure claims about other political parties are accurate and avoid giving a misleading impression. Where necessary, caveats should also be included when quoting data.
We contacted Mr Pawsey and Mr Shapps about their claims but did not get a response.
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The unemployment rate is calculated nowadays by dividing the number of people aged 16 and over who are unemployed—that is, available and seeking work, but not employed—by the total number of economically active people aged 16 and over (all those available for work).
Current unemployment statistics date back to 1971, meaning only two of Labour’s periods in government are covered by the most recent, comparable figures.
In both cases, it’s true that unemployment was higher when Labour left government than when it took office.
When the party entered into government for Harold Wilson’s second spell as Prime Minister in March 1974, unemployment was at 3.6%. When it left office in May 1979 (with Mr Wilson having been replaced by James Callaghan in 1976), unemployment was almost two percentage points higher, at 5.3%. The absolute number of people counted as unemployed had also risen.
Most recently, Tony Blair’s Labour party entered government in May 1997 with unemployment at 7.2%. By the time the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government took office in May 2010, unemployment had risen to 7.9%. Again, absolute numbers had also risen.
While we don’t have directly comparable data going back further than 1971, there are other sources of unemployment data we can look at, including administrative data on unemployment (based on the number of people registered as unemployed or seeking work) since 1881. This data shows monthly rates, but does not use a consistently comparable definition of “unemployment”.
This administrative data shows that for three further periods when Labour was in government prior to 1971 (1929-31, 1945-51 and 1964-70), unemployment did indeed rise during its time in office.
However, between January and November 1924, when Labour was in office for the first time, as a minority government with Ramsay Macdonald as Prime Minister, unemployment fell by around one percentage point, from 11.9% to 10.8%. (The absolute numbers of the unemployed also fell, from around 1.3 million to around 1.2 million).
In addition, though it wasn‘t a “Labour government” as such, it’s worth noting that , between May 1940 and May 1945 the Labour party was part of the wartime government, led by Sir Winston Churchill, which left unemployment lower than when it came in. The unemployment rate dropped from 5.5% in May 1940 to 0.7% in May 1945.
While the historic administrative data quoted above is not directly comparable with modern statistics, it does appear to be broadly comparable over the period of the two governments, with analysis of the administrative rates published in 1996 describing the data between 1920 and 1948 as "a continuous series of approximately comparable figures".
Some Conservative governments have also seen rises in unemployment. When we looked at this issue back in 2021, we found that of the three completed periods of Conservative government since the war, at least two had seen increases.
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