Coincidences are just so happenstancey, aren’t they?

It’s just amazing how things just seem to happen:

Job and career opportunities for young people are "not growing, they're shrinking", with one in six set to be out of work, education or training in five years unless action is taken, a review has found.

The education, health and welfare systems are no longer fit for purpose in preparing young people for adult life, said its author, former minister Alan Milburn.

"We are at risk of a lost generation," he warned, with young adults facing a "perfect storm" of challenges.

Obviously, entirely happenstance. Not even coincidence:

The Apprenticeship Levy is a UK tax on employers which is used to fund apprenticeship training.

Introduced at the start of the 2017/18 tax year, it is payable by all employers with an annual pay bill of more than £3 million, at a rate of 0.5% of their total pay bill.

The effective nationalisation of the apprentice system cannot have had anything to do with it. After all, we ran that grand experiment of the 20th century and we certainly didn’t find out that nationalised and government provision was any worse than markets and prices. The Trabbie was a fine, fine, motor vehicle after all.

No:

That will work the other way. Low paid workers spend all their income so this rise in the minimum wage will increase demand and thus employment.

And:

UK employers' National Insurance Contributions (NICs) have risen to 15% (up from 13.8%) and are now payable on annual earnings above £5,000 (reduced from £9,100).

Making it more expensive to employ people won’t have any effect for, well, employers will just suck it up, see? Anyway, ‘s fair.

Entirely happenstance that nationalising apprenticeships, increasing the wage to be paid and increasing the costs of employing lead to fewer people being employed or trained. Nope, gotta be. OK, well, maybe we might consider whether it’s coincidence?

Oh well, such a pity that we’ve not a predictive science that would tell us the impact of policies before they’re enacted, eh? Because we would like to find out whether this is, in fact, enemy action, wouldn’t we?

Tim Worstall