Wednesday 12 October 2011

Unemployment - a price worth paying for the Tories


Unemployment figures out today show that 2.57 million people are unemployed, the highest since October 1994 - the last time the Tories were in power. But they have surpassed themselves on youth unemployment which hit a new record, in percentage and numerical terms, which is now well over 20% and 991,000.

But the picture is actually even worse than these headline figures suggest. In addition to the 2.57m unemployed are 580,000 workers in temporary jobs who want a permanent job and 1.27m workers in part-time jobs wanting full time work - meaning that there are over 4.4m people looking for more work. The number of people working part-time who want full-time work has increased by 300,000 in last two years.

The Tories are seeking to blame this on a combination of the last Labour government and the current eurozone crisis, but public sector employment is down 240,000 in past year as the Tories' deliberate policy of cutting public service jobs has taken hold - surging ahead of downwardly revised OBR predictions.

As the public sector disproportionately employs women, it is no surprise that the level of female unemployment is up 5.4% in the last year, and is now at a 23 year high.

The message is clear: unemployment is a price worth paying to implement the Tories' ideological crusade to roll back the state, under the cover of a deficit crisis.

1 comment:

  1. It's the same old story- the Tories
    get into power claiming that their policies of cuts and deregulation will boost the economy. Then unemployment skyrockets. Things get worse. And what do they do? Press ahead even further with more cuts. It's the 1980's all over again.

    It is heartbreaking to see the numbers of unemployed and to consider the real human cost of how this effects peoples lives. Long term unemployment can be truly soul destroying and can have consiquences that span generations.

    And the Tory snobs don't care one bit. They live their lives totally disconnected from real people and don't have any of the money worries or difficulties that most people have. All these unemployed people mean absolutely nothing to them. The Tories only care about helping the rich get richer.

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