Tomorrow official unemployment figures will show another alarming rise in people out of work.
So far the private sector has born the brunt, but today the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development is warning the public sector is likely to be badly hit, losing 350,000 over the next five years.
This on the heels of a huge rise in graduates leaving university and further education with no job.
Whatever the perceived emergence of green shoots, mass unemployment is dawning. This reality coupled with the developing acute shortage in housing presents a real opportunity for leadership.
The talk of a Roosevelt type New Deal - in which the state conceives grand projects to make use of spare labour to build infrastructure that helps to kick-start a recovery – has been widespread.
The action according to many has been all but absent. Housing experts are predicting a shortage of homes in years to come.
All this against a background of the battle to combat climate change. Last month we learned that the Bank of England was printing £150bn in quantitative easing to try to keep credit moving. This on top of the many billions spent in saving the banks.
Trade union leaders and others are asking if it is now time to spend a fraction of this amount at the other end of the economy.
When are these developing armies of unemployed to be offered a New Deal?
How about setting up a ‘green corps’ in which all conditions of jobless young people are forged into teams in every part of Britain to make an inventory of every home in the UK that will assess insulation requirements that will enable every home in Britain to meet the highest environmental and emission standards?
Other teams could be established to carry out the work of insulating the nation’s homes on the basis of the ‘green corps’ inventory.
Finally, similar house-building squads could be established with the huge residue of unemployed construction and skilled electricians and the rest who are joining the ranks of jobless.
Rates for the work carried out might not be as good as those offered in a time of boom, but they would be above the minimum wage and considerably above the level of unemployment benefit.
The costs saved in not having to pay such benefits would contribute to the funding of the ‘green corps’ undertakings. Could this form the bedrock of a New ‘green’ Deal?
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Good idea Jon. How good it would be if we were led by people with the vision to realise that when the system is broken it’s a good time to do things differently. Instead we are merely encouraged to start consuming as voraciously as possible again. And ridiculous measures like scrappage where perfectly good cars are being destroyed so we can prop up an ailing industry that has an appalling record on producing things it can’t sell because nobody wants them.
I know I sound like an old socialist, but part of the problem appears to be the insistence of part funding social housing by including some homes in each development which are sold so the developer.can recoup some of his costs.
That was fine when the market was strong but as we are finding out, market economies only seem to work in the good times.
It seems to me we have to make up our minds what we want as a society. If we want good and sufficient social housing, a health service that is fully staffed and can afford the drugs, and enough police and probation officers to keep us safe, we have to pay for it and that means tax.
Of course there is waste and some take advantage but that is true in big business. There can be savings – we could stop trying to police the world for a start – but it is foolish to believe you can have a universally fair system on the cheap.
The recent uproar about MPs’ expenses suggests people still have a fine sense of what is fair and what is unfair so I like to think there is hope.
Very interesting post Jon, Me and friends have talked about this possibility in length over the past few months and we have come to the conclusion that this is one of the best ways for the nation to work it’s way out of the recession, while also simultaneously building to a brighter and more self sufficient future.
Another addition we contemplated was a government funded scheme for social housing to have solar panels and other energy saving devices to help with the cost of energy bills.
The only problem I see is that the Labour government has moved so far away from the past that they will never embrace your vision fully and put some ill-conceived New Labour twist to it.
Also the government could start to make down trodden areas more pleasant places to live.
Oh no, Mother of God …. please …. do you really think that you and your middle-class chums chatting cosily about social injustice and environmental issues over a glass of chardonnay is in any way interesting? Or relevant? Are you in some way qualified, as an economist, to “conclude” that this is the best way out of the recession … that is, by redeploying the jobless to clean up derelict housing estates and ditches? For free. How about developing a sustainable economy where skilled people get paid a fair wage in return for the skills they have spent years acquiring and refining?
If you feel so strongly about nominating “the unemployed” to clean up your community, then get off your backside and do some volunteering yourself. Your arrogance is breathtaking. Unbelievable.
Firstly, could anyone explain to me what the difference between devaluing the pound, which leads to deflation, pay cuts and a drop in the value of sterling and quantitive easing which seems to be leading to deflation, pay cuts and a drop in the value of sterling is?
Yes I agree that governments should be creating jobs for the masses. Whether its green , high tech, manufacturing or service jobs. Unfortunately the Politian’s think it should be the private sector who are creating the jobs. Again could someone tell what the difference between public services creating jobs and helping people find work and a private company creating jobs and helping people find work is, if the bill in both cases is sent to the treasury? Other than someone onto a nice little earner that is.
Sounds good to me – when can I start? I’m graduating in a week but can’t even find a part-time job. Surely some sort of sustainable work-creation schemes are exactly what we need. Perhaps a little more focus on bailing-out the public rather than the banks is in order.
Excellent suggestions, Jon, which could also plug in to the environmental concerns of young people. The employment of graduates could also help bridge the socially and economically undesirable gap between ideas of intellectual (’better, higher-status’) and manual (less worthy, lower-status) labour. There is nothing impressive in relying on others to satisfy our fundamental needs for food, clothing and shelter. On housing figs: as Vince Cable points out in his book ‘The Storm’, there are an estimated 276,000 second homes in the UK, many unoccupied for much of each year (and an estimated further 200,000 overseas). We need to address the ethics of multiple home-ownership at a time when we have long council waiting-lists.
‘Unemployed’. There lies a loaded word. For the last 30 years the official count for people ‘Unemployed’ has been created with a backdrop of down right rule manipulation. The harder the government criteria for entiltlement help, the more people get dropped from the ‘official unemployment’ count, thus the publisized official ‘unemployed’ number is a down right lie and, an attack on those ‘Out of work’ but in receipt of nothing. Those living off relatives and branded ‘lazy sponging parasites’.
Actually, most people and especially government Ministers, give a hoot for the ‘Out of work’ people. It’s only when they join the ranks of ‘em do they experience the reality that they may as well be dead. Unemployment is the worst situation for anyone to find themselves in. There self worth is made 1000 times worse by the denial of financial help, not being counted on the statistics, ignored by the media, denied dental optical & prescription costs, and experiencing evil peoples stereotyping, branding and ostracising them.
‘Green shoots’ or ‘New Deals’ go little way to help. When people care not, you get a society of hatreds, resentments, justifiable crimes and revengeful intentions.
Those young people so willingly joining the armed forces are probably doing so because they would have nothing otherwise. New promised building projects are a fantasy not worth waiting for.
Britain today. A Capitalistic nightmare with no hope.
There was insulation projects as far back as 1993, every house in the country must have some form of insulation or other now
surely? building cycle tracks next to motorways would be a worthwhile project .
Those who are freelance do not collect any benefits when they are out of work (been there myself) so they are not recorded on any figures of ‘out of work’.
They use their savings to sustain themselves and some now are getting very depleted.
The statement by the CIPD spokesperson reminds me of waht happened here in ROI – The Employers UNION – said the Public sector should lose as many jobs as private Sector – why – no reason given . The employers never said during Boom ” that Public sector workers should get same pay as Private sector – it was just sheer envy / begrudgery that the Private sector had made a mess of economy – and wanted the Public sector to be as bad as they were – maybe its not quite same as in UK – but it sounds familar .As regards the CIPD spokesman sattmet that pUblic sector had not yet felt full impact of Recssion – waht planet is he living on ??- but no doubt the Govt . will do wahtever the Priavte sector wants .
Re Green corps – ok – but who is going to pay for all this insulation etc of houses – will there be a grant schem – some houses may not be able / worth insulating or cahnging to bio fuels – but in general I agree with it – as long as Govt . coughs up as quickly to help these householders make their homes less fuel consuming – as it coughed up to the Banks .
The New Deal and Marshall Plan appeared to me as government interventions to wrestle back control of devastated economies and material destruction.
Recent events have not destroyed economies and infrastructure.
These destructive events have been due to greed, exploitation and mismanagement.
Financial interventions to date have been politically motivated to stabilise markets and maintain spending.
Within the UK by Government Bonds and QE, that will have to be repaid thro’ taxation and public spending cuts, Health, Education… no not Housing…..little is being spent at present.
The economic structures have been corrupted and blurred. The inter relationships between Public and Private Sectors have been so infected by PFI, externalisation, arms length management and privatisation that the language that we may have used , say 30 years ago, bears no relation to the present.
The Country requires interest in and votes for clearer division between Public and Private, no Quangos…..Agencies, Authorities etc..typically impenetrable and unaccountable organisations to the citizen on the street .
The clearist example of the corrupting effects of blurring Public and Private has been the contamination of our Political representatives tainted by greed and self advancement.
A total fraud of the publics’ trust in democracy.
NO I don’t wish a green initiative etc .
I DO wish to see simpler and more accountable organisations, politicians, companies and individuals whether they be in private or public employment.
Sorry, meant inflation not deflation in first posting. Didn’t realise word processor had changed the word. I was eating an ice-cream sandwich at the time. Stupid things going to start wars. The word processing software, not the ice cream. Although hasn’t there already been an ice cream war?
Regarding quantative easing. My theory is that this whole printing money with out actually printing money is a kin to giving the banks a bunch of IOUs to play with. I also have another theory. And this comes from someone who is completely bewildered by economics. One of the biggest contributing factors to the current economic “perfect storm” was that economies like Britain’s and America’s are too fond of their bits of paper and this created a whole artificially inflated pseudo-economy. Where as burgeoning economies like China, Brazil and India aren’t really interested in bits of paper and need hard recourses like gold, oil, gas and more importantly a nice bit of pork on their diner table. That somewhere along the line the pseudo-economies came into contact the burgeoning economies caused too much demand for resources that weren’t available and that popped the economic bubble. I wonder what is going to happen when these other bits of paper filter into the wider economy and what effect that will have on jobs.
I don’t think there’s any mileage in the green thing – it sounds like deckchairs-on-the-Titanic-displacement-Comical Ali-New Labour panic.
We need solid jobs, actually making things, like nuclear power stations.
As for Roosevelt’s New Deal, I read somewhere that it didn’t actually affect American unemployment very much. The fall was, apparently, mainly due to the U.S. entering WW2. Not a good omen.
Creating a green workforce, however admirable and constructive, won’t solve the growing long-term unemployment problem or the economy.
Franklin Roosevelt’s far reaching New Deal programmes helped put people back to work, but it was World War 2 that ended the Depression and ushered in America’s brief golden age of plenty.
Massive public works projects are great ideas. But, the deep rooted problem will remain…the one world economy that has brought liberals and conservatives together…and economy that is not only gnawing away at the developed nations’ wealth, but destroying the nation state itself.
But the overrding problem is there’s nothing much any leader can or will do about it…at least in the short term.
America, for example, is getting hit from all sides. Millions of jobs have gone abroad to new factories designed to feed America’s ravenous appetite for cheap junk. Meanwhile, millions of jobs in the USA have gone to illegal aleins from south of the border.
Of course, the UK, in a similar, but mainly more legal fashion, has been hit by low wage EU workers.
The only way this may turn around is when developing producer nations raise their living standards as western nation living standards decline.
In America, I feel the nation is actually in a regression…going backwards towards it roots. In the future, people may have to do without a TV in every room and four cars per family. Life may return to pre war times when families hung together for survival. So, it’s not all doom and gloom, is it?
As a casual observer, the anticipated unemployment figures are indeed alarming, the suggestions for remedy appear to be myopic. Why I consider the proposed solutions to be shortsighted, in short [no pun intended], is clearly a issue for effective taxation. The only way the effective taxation conundrum can be solved is by making hardline provisions, and changes within the constitution.
It is easy to portion blame on a individual politicians, or on a failed economy, however, the crux of the matter is too broad, and one that shouldn’t placed on the shoulders of an individual.
The media coverage of political impropriety in this country and others, suggests a need for real change,a call for a mode of governance that is free from tyranny – a la Aristotle.
History would appear to haver taught us nothing. Corruption and politicians acting ultra vires, is not just a problem in this country but in all systems of government. The difficulty is the need for government to act in the best interests of the individual, rather than act for the invested interests of companies and corporations that fund politics covertly, which provide impetus for an agenda that is greatly detached from the needs of an individual.
Making taxation more effective would significantly improve an individuals standard of living, and provide valuable resource for the public sector. How this is implimented is not impossible, or insurmountable.
How to instigate reform is the answer to the question that alludes so many pu ndits, and politicians alike. How is the easy part, the difficulty is when?
Until we have a codefied subjects/citizens charter, an oath of allegiance highlighting the rights and responsibilities of an individual toward the nation state then taxation will be hemmoraged through difficulties of Human Rights and jurisprudence [as an example]. This issue needs to be resolved immediately.
Codifying rights and responsibilites will be the first step in saving tax and rendering it more effective.
Once savings are being made, then those savings can be used to supliment failing government departments that desparately need further funding. The criminal justice system is in my view one of the primary causes for wasted, ineffective taxation, it has become a perpetual bottomless pit. The savings by making convicts work on infrastructure, deporting those that are a danger yet harboured due to paradoxes in human rights legislation; ECHR protocol and procedure, will save the nation state billions. Billions which can be injected into areas that need the funding. Funding which will bring change to areas worst effected by unemployment.
This issue of unemployment on the rise is a frightening spectre, especially when you consider critical mass, and the fact that there’s a danger of insufficient tax being collected, and too much tax being spent.
Unless radical changes; in how we impliment taxation; how we govern parliament; and how we will improve the standard of living for an individual, then unemployment will continue to be an escalating issue; mainly due to the dominoe effect of, no income, no tax, and no consumer spending equals decline.
Until we impliment change, and make protective measures to safeguard employment, then unemployemt will always be the proverbial bad penny.
We understand change and we can assume it is essential, however, until the real issues in politics are addressed, then the issue of a country in decline will continue to be an issue of conjecture for politicians, who are content to be paid highly for not resolving issues thoroughly whilst playing political ping-pong – I call for revolution, freedom and change…
How could Jon snow get such a decent job without finishing his degree;
What courage or how rebellious;
he has an intact set of cognotove skills and flowing coherent speech. he shoudl read the news without his trousers on.
Because, my well-meaning friend, we are led by people who have a far greater interest in serving the captains of industry than solving problems afflicting the humble populace.
Well said sir! I second your call for revolution, freedom and change. Where do we meet?
Although … your pun wasn’t really a pun. It was just abbreviated repetition. In short. Pun intended.
Meg, can you just clarify what you mean by “bridge the social gap between intellectual and manual labour”. Are you suggesting we send teachers and scientists out to dig the fields, ‘cos, like, that Cambodian dude tried it a while ago and it didn’t work out so well….
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