Yahoo News Johnson Reported To Watchdog After Exaggerating Number In Work By Half A Million
Boris Johnson made the claim during prime minister's questions (Photo: UK Parliament/Jessica Taylor via PA Media)
Boris Johnson has once again been reported to the statistics watchdog after wrongly claiming there are half a million more people in work now than before the pandemic.
The prime minister made the erroneous statement during prime minister’s questions.
He said there were “500,000 more people in paid employment now than there were before the pandemic began”.
But according to the Office for National Statistics, there are actually around 500,000 fewer people employed in the UK now than there were pre-Covid.
Between January and March 2020, just as the pandemic began, the ONS said there were 33,012,000 aged 16 and over in employment.
However, between December 2021 and February this year - the most recent period for which figures are available - that number had actually fallen to 32,485,000.
The Liberal Democrats have now written to the UK Statistics Authority - which has previously rebuked the PM for making the same misleading claim - urging them to investigate.
Christine Jardine, the party’s Treasury spokesperson, said: “By repeating his debunked claim about employment levels, the Prime Minister has once
again shown he has no respect for the truth.
“Whilst families across the UK are struggling to cope with soaring energy bills and rising prices, Boris Johnson is continuing to misrepresent reality in a desperate attempt to score a good headline.
“The prime minister has brazenly misled parliament yet again and cannot go on.
“He must immediately retract these false claims and be honest with the public - for once in his career.”
The UK Statistics Authority has previously berated the prime minister for wrongly claiming employment levels are higher now than before Covid.
While the number of people on payrolls is higher than before the pandemic, this is more than offset by the number of self-employed people who are no longer working.
In a letter to the PM, UK Statistics Authority chair Sir David Norgrove said: “If, as seems to be the case, your statement referred only to the increase in the number of people on payrolls, it would be a selective use of data that is likely to give a misleading impression of trends in the labour market unless that distinction is carefully explained.”
This article originally appeared on HuffPost UK and has been updated.
