How man people were unemployed in 1980 in the UK?

Answer 1

I seem to recall a figure of just over 3 million unemployed being generally accepted as accurate at the time but some classes of people who were not working such as the disabled were not always counted even though they may have been able to work and indeed may have wanted to. Were they unemployed?

It is now a recognised fact however that during the 1980's, the unemployment figures were manipulated for political purposes with quite a lot of being advised to opt for incapacity benefit if they had been ill for a while which had the desired effect of removing them from the unemployment figures. The result of this is coming home to roost in the year 2012 as there are around half a million people being targeted as not really disabled and being fit for work. The fact that this is being done by the same political party that put people there in the first place is to say the least, a bit ironic!