A mobile economy - Telegraph George Osborne's enemies are crowing that the 4G mobile spectrum auction netted less money for the Treasury than the Government had hoped: the Office for Budget Responsibility estimated that it would raise £3.5 billion, but it only drew £2.34 billion. Yet if this teaches us anything, it is to be wary of the OBR's powers of prediction; the department has, in the past, also handed the Chancellor over-optimistic figures on growth, inflation and tax revenue. A single indicator like the 4G sale does not tell us everything we need to know about how well, or how badly, the country is doing. The good news is that the latest jobs numbers show that unemployment fell in the three months up to December, that the number of people in work jumped to a record high, and that the jobless rate is now 0.2 per cent lower than it was before the last election. Higher employment and welfare reform mean fewer people trapped on benefits and lower government bills. Importantly, the labour market is growing in the right places: private sector employment has risen by more than a million since 2010, while public sector employment is down by 375,000. This suggests that the Coalition is achieving its promise to rebalance the economy, to make us more reliant on entrepreneurship than on taxpayer-financed jobs. Of course, the outlook remains mixed: inflation continues to eat at incomes and growth is frustratingly sluggish - hence the need for far greater boldness in next month's Budget than Mr Osborne has yet shown. But while the public finances are in lamentable shape - the 4G shortfall is a mere drop in the ocean of the deficit - the economy itself is moving slowly in the right direction. Let us hope that the new generation of mobile broadband helps it move faster still.