Written question asked by Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated), in the House of Lords. It was answered by Lord Sassoon (Conservative) on Monday, 13 December 2010.

Spending Review 2010

Question: To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many jobs they forecast the private sector will create to compensate for the loss of jobs in the public sector due to Spending Review 2010.

Answer: On 29 November 2010, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) released the official forecast for total employment and general government employment, updated for the spending review announcements. As the OBR sets out in paragraph 3.98, page 62 of its November 2010 Economic and Fiscal Outlook (Cm 7979), it expects total employment to rise by 1.1 million over the next five years, from 29 million in 2010 to 30.1 million in 2015. General government employment is projected to fall by just over 400,000 between 2010-11 and 2015-16, more than offset by a rise in market sector employment of around 1.5 million. In paragraph 3.99, page 62, the OBR presents evidence that this scale of private sector job creation over a period of fiscal consolidation is not unprecedented. The latest labour market statistics suggest that total employment increased by 1.3 million between 1992 and 1998, while general government employment contracted by around 0.5 million.

Secondary information