Mass unemployment: Labour should do ‘whatever it takes’
Posted on Wednesday 15 October, 2008
Filed Under Economics
THREE million people on the dole in Britain; symbolically speaking, that figure still represents some kind of benchmark, bringing to mind all those sepia photographs of 1930s hunger marches and memories of the grimmest years of rampant Thatcherism.
Well, dust off those Right to Work Campaign and People’s March for Jobs badges; several leading forecasters are predicting that unemployment is set to return to that level by 2010.
It is my own direct experience of being an unemployed school-leaver that, more than anything else, galvanized me into political involvement and gave me a set of socialist convictions that I have somehow sustained into middle age.
For me, the number one item on the charge sheet against capitalism is that it can – and regularly does – leave so many people out of work. Never mind the criminal waste of human potential; the social cost of the devastation of entire communities is simply beyond the capacity of economists to measure.
Even during the boom years since 1992, unemployment has remained a sinister presence looming in the background. I think I’m right in saying that the official count never fell below one million, a figure that would have been considered politically unsustainable throughout the post-war consensus period. That is what we have been asked to consider as ‘full employment’.
And of course, the official count is virtually meaningless. On some estimates, as many as one in four British men of working age are either unemployed or economically inactive.
Despite all that Blairite guff about flexible labour markets, Britain’s job creation record is among the worst in the EU. Jobs have continually been lost through financially driven mergers and acquisitions, downsizing, low investment, bad training, the pursuit of short term profit goals, high dividend payments and poor management.
To read that an extra £100m is being made available for retraining those made redundant as a result of the impending downturn really sums up the inadequacy of existing plans. That is just one 370th of the money that has been made available for the bank bail-out.
Surely a Labour government can be far more ambitious than that? If public ownership is seen as a panacea for the financial services sector, for instance, why not extend the approach to companies that insist they have no alternative to declaring mass redundancies? Would not such social investment be a better use of resources than funding ever-extending queues outside Britain’s Jobcentres?
Recent weeks have seen the three word mantra ‘whatever it takes’ gain currency as a political soundbite, perhaps designed to flag up a resolute approach to keeping the credit system going.
But if Labour can do whatever it takes for the City, it can and should do whatever it takes to keep people working.
Or is it only Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds TSB and HBOS that can expect the British state to provide a rock of stability?
<<Go back
Comments
22 Responses to “Mass unemployment: Labour should do ‘whatever it takes’”
-
- Yemen: an unfinished revolution
- Comment Is Free: An honours system for those who fight to make Britain a better place
- Democracy crushed; elected President arrested; World wrings its hands
- Fabians change policy on unpaid internships
- Kamal al-Fayoumi arrested as Egyptian regime retaliates to strikes
-
-
Meta
-
“On some estimates, as many as one in four British men of working age are either unemployed or economically inactive.”
Women are under reported. They are often not able to claim benefits as their partner is working, can’t afford the childcare and it falls to them to stay at home . Also the majority of family carers are women who find it hard to work .
The measures needed to help women work, such as free universal childcare, are not going to happen in this climate .
Andrew Neil on today’s Daily Politics: “82% of the jobs created by the Labour govrnment since 1987 have gone to foreigners, according to ONS figures”.
My observation: “70% of Islington Council’s social tenants are in receipt of housing benefit. Over the past couple of years the council has spent about £500m on refurbishing its property estate. Most of the Labour came from eastern Europe”.
Some scummy government.
“82% of the jobs created by the Labour govrnment since 1987 have gone to foreigners, according to ONS figures”.
Presumably you mean “1997″. Otherwise:
This means 82% of the jobs created by the Labour government were of the kind that no-body other than “foreigners” were willing to do them. Low pay, poor and often unsafe working conditions, antisocial hours, and probably, as is par for the course in such precarious jobs, without any union representation.
It’s got nothing to do with “Labour putting foreigners first” (which is the undertone I read in ‘michael, Islington’´s comment, feel free to correct me if the slur’s unfair or wrong) – but to do with the government only creating crap, McJobs.
And when it comes to Islington Council: ever heard of compulsory competitive tendering, Michael? It forces local authorities to give the contracts to the (seemingly) cheapest bidder. Of course, it might work out cheaper to pay out less Housing Benefit (assuming a fair proportion 70% of Islington’s tenants are actually unemployed, able to work, and also qualified building workers) than to give a cheap bidder the deal, but we all know it doesn’t “work” like that. It might also be that the dire state of vocational training since Thatcher means that the only places that British companies can find well qualified and competent building workers are Poland (renowned for their craftsmens’ and womens’ skills, also in Germany), the Czech Republic, and eastern Germany?
Do you have a problem with a large percentage of Berlin’s rebuilding since the Wall came down being done by cheap (British) labour, undercutting the union wage here? Just wondered.
It’s not “Labour’s” fault as such, it’s the c- word (and I don’t mean in the Jarvis Cocker sense).
With the return of mass unemployment, foreign labour is really going to become a major issue. As d z bodenberg says, it’s all to do with the Government not investing in training people and relying on poaching skilled labour from other countries. I heard a man on the news this morning saying that people will need to relocate to the Far East to find jobs. I think he was talking about (mainly) banking employees, but who knows?
I have asked people to sign a petition at Downing Street.
I am waiting for it to be approved.
But suggest we get ourselves working to prevent another 30 ‘s style depression, and get government spending up (No tax cuts!) on BUILDING infrastructure, including Housing via private sector.
What I said to the Prime Minister (I had to cut short to 1000 characters – but give here the uncut version, for further improvement among this blog etc) so we can word the petion correctly.
Dear Prime Minister
You acted decisively on the financial crisis. Some say late. tightly as a good Scottish banker. (12% – 5% shows), you may have got a damn good deal for the taxpayer, but I suggest you let go and worry more about ensuring a thriving banking industry not a well off tax treasury /tax payer! Taxes will come if they do well – you argued in 92)
On this – UNEMPLOYMENT- act more liberally so that today’s society will remember you, not history and TODAY not after XMAS.
May I request that you rule in the Keynesian tools in this recession Right Now – Call Govt Depts, and private sources for ideas openly- so the building industry remains in a sensible shape?
You said you will do whatever it takes to deal with the financial system, but can we have that on this as well? Keynes was forsaken twice by this nation, in the 30s, and by John Major.
Conservatives want to do it 3rd TIME, notice how all their speeches say how there was too much spent in the past so we have no reserves to spend in bad times, (both Untrue (almost 6-8% of GNP borrowed between 92 and 97) and frightening (I shivered on hearing the speech by David Cameroun at the Con Conference) to me as a qualified Economist. Cons get away with such lies?
It is John Major once again. Can the Gordon who obtained a double first explain the wrong in this thinking please?
I lost 18 years of my prime life because of John Majors hammer to crack a nut approach – Gordon you have to correct the wrong then. If you need help call me. Mehdi Fazal 07940 567664; Blogg started:
http://livejournalmehdifazal.blogspot.com/
I agree with “(Labour) can and should do whatever it takes to keep people working” above.
But we would also need to specify what it takes.
Someone I know, unemployed for 18 months, has been on a compulsory New Deal scheme which was being sat in an office, job-searching, all day for 13 weeks apart from a month spent working in Argos clearing up, on a ‘work placement’, for £5 per day and all with no training at all – and then back on the dole.
I’m sure the ‘training provider’ was very well rewarded for providing him with a chair and PC access (to do his job search) and Argos will be pleased with getting slave labour.
In the same way, a large (and genuine) increase in spending on buses in London has led to fare increases above inflation, a 50% cut in the timetable of my local bus but to some very fat bus controllers. Similar rises in NHS spending have enriched private sector companies disproportionally.
So just spending money on unemployment could lead to a lot of very wealthy training companies and no dent in unemployment figures unless (demand?) spent under trade union control? other.
Saw the ITN news this evening (Wednesday) and apparently Gordy bewildered all the European Finance Ministers who asked him what he was planning to do about unemployment and he suggested that the unemployed be put to dwork lagging lofts. Ecological as well as solving unemployment. The Government minister (Tony McNulty) on the Channel 4 News seemed to more or less suggest that the Government was washing its hands of the unemployed. At least that was my impression. I hope I have got hold of the wrong end of the stick.
SPP – someone I know worked for one of these providers. A middle-aged student of hers was given an unpaid week’s work placement with a well-known high street retail firm. At the end of the week the manager of the shop said that he needed another week before deciding.
This went on for a few weeks until the bloke involved seriously injured his back stacking shelves, after six weeks unpaid and completely unsuitable work with no proper training, and will now be on sick benefit indefinitely, possibly the rest of his working life.
The natural consequence of a targets-based job search system with cash incentives for the ‘service provider’.
“I’m sure the ‘training provider’ was very well rewarded for providing him with a chair and PC access (to do his job search)”
I doubt it – my sister works for a charity that organises training courses like there, and there is no money in it.
From the Independent (although from 2000)
“The Government will come under fresh attack over the cost of its high-profile New Deal programme today with an independent report showing it costs as much as £11,000 a job.”
(http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/new-deal-costs-pound11000-per-job-created-707173.html)
An inefficient charity? The provider I was reporting about was a commercial company, and they don’t do it for love.
And there’s also 30 hours at minimum wage + oncosts times 20 days saved by Argos.
But the big point is that I’m sure Labour will say – banking crisis, railway system, education and now, maybe, unemployment – we are spending X on this, X being a big number.
But who is getting that cash or benefit – usually the train company, not the train passenger.
I doubt it – my sister works for a charity that organises training courses like there, and there is no money in it.
So WHY do they do it then? Charities aren’t meant to waste money, are they?
“So WHY do they do it then? ”
Well this is part of New Labour’s approach to welfare provision, to farm out the work to the non-statuatory sector, who then have to scramble around for grant aid, from the lottery, loval authorities, private trusts or whatever.
The charities only do the work they can get funding for from these sources – so it is all precarious, pooorly funded, and with less employment security and with worse employment conditions that in the public sector.
It’s clear that New Labour farms out as much as possible to the private or voluntary sector, taking things away from the state.
But what does *the charity* get out of it exactly, apart from hassle? Are they just being “kind” (and very stupid), and think that they offer the best they can as no-one else will do it? Or do they hope to get access to “bigger things” (bigger schemes, with more funding) through such timewasting courses and the pennies attached to it?
The joke “computer courses” (“4 weeks learning how to use a mouse”, as someone recently described their experience of being long-term-unemployed to me, or learning to use computers – on paper – because there aren’t any computers to be used), as well as the “how to write a CV and how to apply for jobs courses, as it’s your fault you’re on the dole” courses (and if you criticise anything that goes on, you get your benefit docked) are a *big money-spinner* for lots of dodgy (and supposedly ‘respectable’) organisations in Germany. They’re the only people who seem to have gained from “welfare reform” here. Including a lot of supposed not-for-profit charities. They don’t do it out of the goodness of their hearts.
I’m disabled in my area the biggest employers are the council with 5.000 people and the retail shops like Asda Tesco and Morrison and our council is trying to get another two major retail units to employ more people. It’s all low pay Tesco in my area has no disabled people, Asda has two and Morrison’s does not employ anyone unless they can do the job. So I was told to retrain, if you retrain you will get a job and I agreed OK no problems, what do you want to retrain as. I’ve no idea what I can do being disabled, OK can you become a window cleaner well I cannot climb ladders, painting decorating difficult in a wheelchair, lets see drive a lorry not allowed due to disability or a bus or a taxi because I have fits.
Ok lets see social worker nope insufficient education to old. Lets see cleaning we have an opening at the hospital for a cleaner, I’m so pissed off I say OK, interview do not forget this is training not a job, sorry we have no more training places due to cut backs.
So today I go down to the job center to be told come back after Christmas.
hell of a life.
“But what does *the charity* get out of it exactly, apart from hassle?”
Well why does any business do anything?
Charity status is just a particular set of regulations and certain tax advantages that some private companies are entitled to.
What mainly happens in the non-statuatory sector is that organisations are set up with one original purpose, and then get staff and premises, and the constant treadmill of grant applications, and the conditions of the grant aid changes the priorities.
So I imagine that a charity that originally started with good intentions about helping the unemployed becomes funded for particular training projects, and then the lottery fund reporting requirements foce them to deliver that training in a certain way to try to get repeat funding.
Well, Andy, to answer your first question:
why does any business do anything? – the answer is surely, as a rule, “to make money, to make profit”.
But this contradicts your claim there is no money in it.
So bascially it’s just a non-profit treadmill, keeping a few people in a job, even if it means they’re using the unemployed to do it, right? Or do they make money out of it after all?
@DZ
While you make some decent points about the precarious nature of much work in the Uk: actually, I do think it is a problem that, for example, hundreds of thousands of young NEETs have been left to fester while the CBI encouraged mass migration to provide the cheap labour neccessary to fuel the Brown boom. The left remained largely silent on this as it would jar with their ideology and core beliefs on internationalism. Ii is also a fact that this ‘global labour pool’ has driven down wages and made insecure work even more so. Strange that in the 60′s and early 70′s the left challenged the ‘lump’ system in the construction sites which also ultimately aimed to reduce pay and conditions
Imo, the far left seems to see many things in purely abstract terms , rather than looking at the impact on the ground, particuarly long term. The ‘No Borders’ slogan and campaign would be an example of that, little support in the country and even less chance of being implemented in the near future, however desirable it may be as a very very long term goal.
Turbning to the traininga gencies, the PCS did a very good report on them and identied companies such as A4E as making millions form poor quality training. One does wonder why there has been so little scruting of this billion pound industry, one of the biggest scams of the early 21st Century
to Frenetic: What are NEETs?
Sorry, young people ‘Not in Education or Employment’
frenetic -
Far from jarring with “the left’s” ideology and core beliefs, socialists I know are more than aware of the way that bosses and neo-liberal politicians use migrant workforces to undermine pay and conditions of existing employees. It’s pretty straightforward theoretically as well as observable. It’s happened throughout history and the current period is nothing unusual.
That doesn’t mean that we have to respond by attacking migrants or the principle of internationalism, or by disgracefully using increased border controls to further divide the working class in different countries. There are other approaches.
Sorry if that doesn’t fit in with the generalised ranting about the failings of this nebulous generality called “the left”. If you believe in “British jobs for British workers” then come out and say it.
Yet again the old tired insinuations of racism appear instead of answering substantive questions. I ask again, how did the left allow or not raise the issue of the hundreds of thousands of young people to fester without jobs, training, etc during a ‘employment boom’
Actually that isn’t what you asked. In fact, I can only see one question mark in your posting and that is on a different topic.
You came out with an inaccurate and gratuitous misrepresentation: “The left remained largely silent on this as it would jar with their ideology and core beliefs on internationalism.” That is simply not true.
Your posting explicitly linked the number of young people not in education and employment with migration. You didn’t suggest any positive things which the government could do about young unemployed people, but presumably that’s the job of ‘The Left’ (whoever they are) rather than you.
Now you’re backtracking to make yourself look less prejudiced. At least you’ve got enough shame to do that.