Brexit Boom: Employment Reaches Record High Ahead of Brexit Deadline

Industrial Worker at the factory welding closeup
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Kurt Zindulka

The United Kingdom has yet again defied prognostications and expectations from anti-Brexit economists, posting record job numbers under the leadership of Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

The number of people employed in the UK reached an all-time high in the three month period leading up to the October Brexit deadline. Some 24,000 people joined the labour force during the period, taking the total number of people employed to a record 32.8 million.

The UK employment rate rose to 76.2 per cent, while the unemployment rate fell to 3.8%, the lowest it has been since January of 1975 according to the figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

The good economic news for Boris Johnson’s government flies in the face of economists who, according to a Reuters poll, predicted a 10,000 job loss ahead of the latest Brexit deadline.

“The larger-than-expected rise in employment in October suggests the labour market is not getting any worse and may have even started to turn around,” Andrew Wishart at Capital Economics said.

“Britain ends 2019 still hard at work after a record-breaking year of strong employment. Alongside rising pay and low unemployment, this will certainly be welcome news to the new government,” Nye Cominetti, an economic analyst told the Financial Times.

In November, Breitbart London reported that the economy of the United Kingdom has grown in 13 of the 14 quarters since the 2016 referendum to leave the European Union, growing 0.3 per cent in the third quarter of this year.

The economic figures also debunked a key Remainer argument, that the UK economy would have been three per cent smaller if the Brexit vote never happened.

In response to the good economic news, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard wrote at the time: “Exaggerated claims by the anti-Brexit movement are part of an ideological battle within the UK and across the European political landscape. They are intended to shape opinion and change policy. They matter. They must, therefore, be confronted and debunked.”

Since the referendum the United Kingdom has an accumulated growth of 4.9 per cent, outpacing Germany over the same period, which grew at 4.7 per cent.

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