One of the reasons for the almost full employment in the UK economy is the resilience of the public sector in hanging on to jobs. Latest figures this week (for December 2018 with reclassifications like housing associations moving to the private sector stripped out) from the Office for National Statistics show 5.37 million people employed in the public sector, 13,000 more than the previous quarter. Compared to the previous year the increase was 61,000.

While the percentage of the total workforce employed in the public sector at 16.4% is the lowest in 20 years, this is partly due to the extra private sector jobs which increased in 2017/18 by an astonishing 412,000.