Public forecast 012 · permanent record
Will the ONS headline UK unemployment rate for the three months to July 2026, as first published, be between 4.7% and 5.1% inclusive?
RESOLVED — scored against the source named before the outcome was known.
- Question
- Will the ONS headline UK unemployment rate for the three months to July 2026, as first published, be between 4.7% and 5.1% inclusive?
- Probability band
- 86–94% — issued 2026-08-30, data cut-off 2026-08-30
- Frozen criterion
- Resolves TRUE if the headline UK unemployment rate (aged 16 and over, three months May to July 2026), in the figure first published by the ONS in the Labour market overview bulletin scheduled for 15 September 2026, is greater than or equal to 4.7% and less than or equal to 5.1%. Resolves FALSE otherwise. Scored against the figure as first published, not later revisions. If the bulletin is postponed beyond 30 September 2026 the forecast is marked withdrawn with that reason.
- Resolves by
- 2026-09-15
- Resolution source (named in advance)
- https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/bulletins/uklabourmarket/previousreleases
- Model
- judgement — reasoning recorded at issue, unchanged since
- Ledger id
lxf_external_012- Outcome
- TRUE — 4.9%
- Evidence, as first published
- The UK unemployment rate for people aged 16 years and over was estimated at 4.9% in May to July 2026. (source, published 2026-09-15)
- Brier score
- 0.01 — band midpoint 0.90. 0 is perfect, 0.25 is what always saying 50% scores.
Reasoning recorded at issue — unchanged since, including where it turned out to be wrong: The headline rate was 4.9% for April to June 2026, as first published on 18 August 2026 and resolved on this register (lxf_external_004); the same bulletin notes the rate down 0.1pp on the quarter, with vacancies at 707,000 and falling — a cooling but not collapsing market. The May-to-July window shares two of three months with the April-to-June window, so month-to-month movement in the rolling headline rate is structurally small; one-quarter changes of more than 0.2pp are rare in the modern series. The band is the July print ±0.2pp. The residual risk is methodological rather than economic: the Labour Force Survey remains in transformation and its month-on-month volatility has been higher than historic norms, which is why this is not issued at 90%+.
If ten forecasts were issued at this band, the band claims roughly 9 of them should come true. Calibration — not certainty — is what the register is scored on.
What would prove this system wrong: a forecast on this register edited after issue, a resolution scored against anything but the source named in advance, or an accuracy claim made before ten outcomes have resolved in a domain. Every one is checkable from the raw ledger — the full falsification list.