"Budget to cost 1.3m job losses" - More bad news, eh?

[TottWriter]

www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jun/29/budget-job-losses-unemployment-austerity?CMP=AFCYAH

Not that this will be a surprise to many people I guess, but it's still worrying news. Particularly since the government seem so adamant about denying it all. Things are looking grim for people who are out of work.

Typical of the Guardian to ignore the other Treasury forecast.

Yes, those forecasts say 1.1-1.3m people will lose jobs, but also that 2.5m more will get jobs over the next few years. That is a net gain of more than a million jobs and a big vindication of the economic strategy.

Of course both figures are just projections anyway. You can believe or disbelieve them as you please.

Actually the Guardian does mention the forecast of new jobs: "The Treasury is assuming that growth in the private sector will create 2.5m jobs in the next five years to compensate for the spending squeeze."

The Guardian didn't ignore that forecast.

However, those extra jobs are based on a forecast rather than reality - which is (sadly) what the job losses will be.

The article did actually do a fair amountof analasis as to whether those forecasted job increases were likely to arise, and concluded that the estimates were rather too closely tied to grown before the recession to be likely.

With cutbacks in future jobs programmes and support like Train to Gain, there will also be an awful lot of people without the right skills to go into any new jobs too. It isn't always whether there are jobs out there, it's whether there are the right jobs.

Getting people off JSA/ESA is all very well, but whacking them into minimun wage jobs for which they need government benefits to survive day-to-day isn't going to do much for the deficit either. And growth is bad everywhere - lots of jobs such as call-centre and production work are being pushed out to India and China because it's easier to exploit people there. That isn't going to change any time soon; those countries are too big for legislation to simply fix the issue. It will take decades. Meanwhile, what companies can you think of which are growing rapidly here right now?

WRT the legislation I meant that you can't pass legislation in India and China to improve wroking conditions, because they are so big that people can always get round them, not that legislation here will make more jobs in the private sector. Sorry, should have made that clearer.

I would worry slightly less about the loss of public sector jobs were the government not simultaneously trying to squeeze people off of benefits. No one is saying that we can continue to sustain a bloated public sector, but it seems that the timing here is out one way or another.

I wouldn't believe a word that the Guardian had to say about anything.

On LBC tonight [the radio], the news said that the 1.3 million job losses is the equivalent to the entire NHS staff. Same on SKY. So it is not just the Guardian...it's everyone!

I think perhaps you should compare total job losses in a normal year. It may be that normally there are 1m job losses per year but that 1.5m jobs are created so there is a net gain. Hysterical shouty headlines like this should always be taken with a pinch of salt. After all it wouldn't be so exciting or sell so many newspapers to say 300,000 more job losses expected but overall job growth expected, would it? Also Sky 'News' are not reknowned for their love of the truth.

It is a bit worrying though that public sector jobs seem to be evenly spread geographically but private sector ones are concentrated in cities.

Do you have a source on that StealthPolarBear?

No, just the way it seems to me - I work in public sector and we have offices in small towns dotted all over. When looking for a job for DH, all work is within cities.

I think the comparison of the NHS was quite good in that you could visably imagine how many people that would actually be-every city has a hospital, surgery etc [now imagine all those people loosing their jobs-it's pretty dire]. It just sort of puts it into perspective don't you think?

This budget is shockingly stupid. It was so depressing how on PMQs Davind CAmeron kept saying "no theres going to be MORE jobs" but saying it over and over again doesnt make it true.
It does take money to employ people. And with these cuts and more people unemployed, who will have the money to spend to support new businesses?
I think someone was saying these projections assume the same rate of growth as in the labour boom years, but with no basis for that growth.

We have many people in my city who are employed in public sector. I think its about a third of the working population! These cuts will be a disaster.

DS already been told his job will be gone in the Autumn

Sorry that should say DH not DS