Here's one of the odd things about this recession - unemployment is high, but not as high as we all expected.
So far, output levels have fallen by a massive 6% - but the recent rise in unemployment has been less steep than many feared. Everyone thought unemployment would have reached 3 million by now - but the official ILO measure is showing 2.46 million right now. That's 7.8% of the adult workforce - still high, but lower than the 13% in Ireland and 10% in the US.
Another puzzle is the big difference between the wider ILO measure of unemployment, and the claimant count. Roughly 1.6 million are now claiming Jobseeker's Allowance - almost 1m fewer than the total unemployed number.
Here's another. A few months ago, everyone was predicting 1m unemployed young people. So far, the official number is still some way below that (943k).
How come we're managing to keep a lid on unemployment rising? And why aren't more people signing on for JSA?
Official explanations include the big increase in part-time work. Employers are shifting more workers than ever before, from full-time to part-time. This is helping to limit the number of job losses, and keeping total unemployment below the 3 million mark.
The Government is taking some of the credit, pointing to the Future Jobs Fund - set up earlier this year, to combat youth unemployment. I got an update on how the Fund is performing, when I chaired a conference in Birmingham yesterday on youth unemployment.
The Fund aims to create 150k temporary jobs over the next year or two. It's part of the wider Young Person's Guarantee, which will be fully up and running from Jan 2010. The Fund has now provided enough money to create 95k jobs for young people and those in unemployment hotspots.
But the Fund has only just started. Only a few hundred real people have been placed in real jobs so far. Swindon - where youth unemployment has risen very sharply - has successfully bid for over 200 jobs through the Fund, but now has to match those jobs to its young unemployed. DWP is aiming to fill 30k of those 95k jobs up to March 2010.
So if the Future Jobs Fund has only just started to kick in, why is the claimant count so much lower than expected?
Here's one answer - lots of young unemployed people simply aren't signing on.
I chaired a panel of six young men at yesterday's conference - and only one of them was claiming Jobseeker's Allowance. The rest of them had decided not to sign on - either because they didn't want to get into the JSA habit, or because they wanted to do more than 16 hours of training a week, or they were picking up casual labour. Most of them had GCSEs, and wanted to work in construction - but Birmingham has been hit worst than most other cities, and there aren't many construction jobs around. Shockingly, none of them had a good word to say about JobCentre Plus or Connexions. And because they weren't signing on, they weren't eligible for the advice and support that JCP offers - and hadn't heard of the Future Jobs Fund.
This got me thinking - there are probably loads of other young people that are unemployed, but not claiming JSA. And youth unemployment could already be above 1 million.
Lots of the conference delegates - all dedicated and committed to helping young people - kept referring to JobCentre Plus programmes as a "customer journey" for young unemployed people. The problem is that too many young people aren't even on the journey.