The quarterly unemployment figures published in September put an end to the attempt to play one region off against another over who is suffering most as government economic policy screws the country. Official unemployment figures range from 6 to 9.2 per cent across Britain, averaging 7.8 per cent with London at 9.3 per cent second only to the North East (9.4 per cent).
Whatever the rate the figure of just under 2.5 million unemployed workers is still an outrage and will obviously soar as further government cuts are implemented. It further ignores the fact that 7.84 million workers are working part-time to try to survive. Of 184,000 “new” jobs created between May and August, 115,000 were part time.
The 184,000 jobs are no longer described as jobs or posts but as “roles”. Employers are undermining employment rights by having millions of workers on short-term, part-time, agency, flexible, job share, fixed term etc contracts.
There has to be a genuine campaign for the right to work in Britain. We have to define what that work is – useful or useless, skilled, trained – and the campaign focus has to be on “make it in Britain” and “grow it in Britain”.