Video Transcription:
We were expecting unemployment to go up.
Employment to go up was at 4.5 it’s now 4.8. Redundancies if you look at that bottom right hand corner you’ll see that blue graph that all of a sudden jumps up to above 10 percent oh sorry not 10 it’s per 11.3 per thousand employees. This is for July and September if you remember October was the end of the furlough scheme and it was supposed to in November start the job support scheme. They’ve scrapped that they’ve extended the furlough which for me is awesome yeah and we’ll talk more about that in a second.
We were expecting the redundancies to go up and I think to be fair there’s nothing really you know as much as they’re making news out of that we’re expecting this. We were expecting this and we’re probably the next figures that come out will also see them jump up again because people are making decisions because furlough was ending going to the job support scheme. Businesses had to make decisions and the problem was they extended the furlough on the last day of it so you know you can say well that’s a bad thing but I kind of do feel for the government in the situation they’re in. Where that you know they’re trying to run an economy with so many different moving parts you know and actually to be fair what they’ve done and and I think this above all is where I’ve been you know I’ve been saying that winter is going to drop off it hadn’t dropped off yet but actually what they’ve done now by by extending the furlough through to spring that means that actually now we’ve got not only a property market that’s still potentially going to do well. We’ve got you know the economy that will still potentially do well. The unemployment figures will be quite low. And actually do you know what and this is I think this whole test case because I said you know I’ve been saying for a few weeks now. If you look at the great depression the same situation that would happen now or was in now the same look and feel of the economy was back then. But the reaction was that they raised interest rates whereas here they’ve dropped interest rate they’ve printed money into the thing and so what that’s meant is a totally reversed decision. I think that will play out and I think in two or three four years time what we’re going to see is perhaps not huge growth but we’re going to see we don’t have that massive drop. That is the key nowadays modern days to surviving a recession.
I do really think that is the case and for me look I’ve been very positive right the way through. On one side you know you sort of think maybe I’ve gotta you know sort of put my feet on both camps and you know there’s a lot of youtubers out there that you know you know housing crash and blah blah blah I haven’t seen it you know and and that’s why I haven’t been predicting it. I haven’t seen it, I still don’t see it and every decision that gets made yes it increases the debt, yes it kicks the can down a road a bit but actually what it does for now it gets us through the potential of this. That actually right now is far more important than the debt later on because inflation and all sorts of things get rid of the debt later on. With rates so low the finance then the repayments on that debt is actually quite manageable. For me it’s an interesting you know game right now.
So good news you know and I think we go into Christmas and I think you know, I’ve said to my staff because the furlough system’s here. I’ve said listen because we’re going to be taking two potentially three weeks off anyway. That just happens in our industry okay what we’re looking to do is we’re talking to the team about furloughing some of them. Because why not you know and and that way they can have a good holiday go off and you know and really I guess because you know we’ve been working so hard and so this is actually an opportunity which is a great opportunity you know if we can take it. Still talking about it but yeah we’ll see how that goes.
One of the issues with this is that if you have a look it’s all great to say 4.8 percent but actually check out 16 to 24 year olds. Unfortunately this is what happens in recessions those young people who aren’t skilled who are looking to get into the job market who are in jobs that aren’t you know permanent and you know they can be retrenched and that sort of thing they actually suffer the most so 14.6 percent which is quite high. And you know it hasn’t jumped up massively but it’s still jumped up a lot more than the actual unemployment rate generally. So you know look at that unemployment rate down the bottom it’s not that actual bad you know. It doesn’t look that bad it’s not one of these up you know like that will it be well we’ll see i think with what’s in place no I think we are going to keep it at bay certainly to the spring and then you get the spring bounce you know and hopefully by then the Covid vaccines in and where you know where everything’s positioning to actually turn out pretty damn good.
Government extends furlough to March you know and I’ve sort of already preempted this really I mean look this is for me fantastic you know because it gives ultimate flexibility. Where you can now lay off for a certain period you can bring them back on you know and and because of that flexibility that’s going to allow businesses to see the way through this period. It’s not just that there’s the cbills and the bounce backs and the extensions of those you know to go from six year to ten year. I think you know this is all leading in the right direction you know so for me you know it’s hard to sit here and go what’s the bad news and I know you know all over the place there’s so many people saying no no you wait you just watch. But I’m sorry you know the the stats and everything and i’m looking around the world of the US house prices going up you know Australia house prices going up in fact it’s it’s almost impossible to buy a property there now you know you just can’t I mean it’s a bit like the UK you know it’s not weird, there is so much money being pumped into the economy that’s sure it’s propping it up and it’s debt that’s right but you know what it’s government debt on a very low rate so you know i’ve sort of mentioned that.
There’s huge opportunities out there and as long as you’re not you know that the news is there to have the headlines and you know unfortunately that’s a and a lot of the majority of the negative headlines unfortunately but I think the real key is you know how does it affects your portfolio. Has affected your career things like disruption all that and when you work all that out actually you might find that now there’s no better time to invest than now. The rates are insane you know i mean we’re talking you know I’ve got some clients who are talking about 1.9% you know which is just extraordinary you know and you know the cash flow on that is so cheap and and they’re able to lock that in for two to five years.
November 23