So as unemployment increased to 8.1% nationally and the unemployment total for 16-24 year olds hit a record high of 991,000 in the last quarter, an unemployment rate of a staggering 21.3%.
From a personnel perspective my own son graduated in July 2005 and since then has worked in a series of part-time or temporary jobs, each and every one paying the minimum wage; typically in office administration. One job in Taunton, (a well known Department Store Head Office) lasted 11 months, it seems the situation changes when you try and stay in a job for more than a year. As he signed on the Job Centre; staff said his job and others were being advertised; what sort of business ethics are in place when big High Street companies act like this!
Wages and job security are suffering when what is required is good jobs with good pay and conditions and ongoing training to develop a skilled workforce, not a pool of unemployed workers who are used and abused by employers, rather like raw materials in the ‘Goods In’ section of a factory. Stagnating wages and low paid service sector jobs as private business reaps the high profits from once state provided services and facilities, is this life we want for our children and our grandchildren?
The Employment Secretary, Chris Grayling, said that what the UK was now seeing was "the impact of the international financial crisis". But I believe that the Tories are using the economic crisis as cover, they are simply carrying on where Thatcherism left off; redistributing power from working people to the wealthy elite. The last Conservative government achieved it largely through many anti-union laws and suppressing workers' rights together with a massive shift of the burden of tax from direct to indirect taxation.
Its amazing what you can get away with mass unemployment as the rich people's wealth rise over 30% in the last few years and with a top 1% lifting a hefty 23% slice of the national pie!
Perhaps we may see further reductions in company corporation tax, at a low of 24% as means to create new business incentives; sorry create more jobs!
Vince Cable seems very quiet at present, perhaps emerging as the new Mr. Bean of the financial world as Baron von Osborne runs amok with our economy!
No comments:
Post a Comment