The latest data shows the economy is smaller today than it was in in the first quarter of 2010 and now 4.5 per cent below the previous peak in the first quarter of 2008.
The jobless total in the UK was 2.5 million people at the end of December, while the unemployment rate stood at 7.8%. However, this figure does not include people who are on workfare placements or are underemployed in part-time work. The true figures wanting a job is likely to be 8+ million. This is a desperate waste of the real wealth creators.
At the same time ‘We are stumbling into a lost decade, serious long term damage is being done to the economy and any recovery looks like it will be based on a lower wage, lower productivity model with serious implications for living standards. As for the claim that austerity has brought us low interest rates – I’m amazed anyone bothers to argue this nonsense anymore.’ Duncan Weldon ToUChstone blog
Keynes said ” Look after unemployment and the budget will look after itself. ” We need a government committed to full employment and a jobs guarantee for everyone who wants to take one. Rooseveldt showed how it can be done – back in the 1930s. But we have a Tory/LD coalition government that is doing the opposite in the name of a recovery that never comes.
From KC’s JobsNow! Hat-tip – New economic perspectives
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A lost decade…that about sums it up. It sure feels like a lost decade, a lost decade of grimness, of lost jobs, of gritting our teeth and bearing being stuck in jobs that pay us little, being overworked, unable to spend on the little luxuries, having our benefits cut, our disabled family members being subjected to a battery ram of humiliating tests to determine they are in fact disabled and all the while the ConDem government do nothing but tell us we are all in this together and that their plan of cut, cut, cutting will eventually pay off. When? Tell me when?
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