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Employment statistics

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Employment statistics - Page 2 Empty Employment statistics - Cameron lies again

Post by skwalker1964 Fri Oct 19, 2012 11:56 am

First topic message reminder :

Repost from my blog. As usual, for links please visit the original at: http://skwalker1964.wordpress.com/2012/10/18/october-employment-statistics-cameron-lies-and-misdirects/

It’s time again to take a proper look at the latest ONS employment statistics. David Cameron, with his usual arrogant sneer, tried to taunt Ed Miliband this week during Prime Minister’s Questions, by asking why Miliband wasn’t congratulating the government on the fact that “employment is up by 212,000 this quarter; unemployment is down by 50,000 this quarter; the claimant count has actually fallen by 4,000; and what that means is that since the election some 170,000 fewer people are on out-of-work benefits“.

That kind of sneering triumphalism deserves to be challenged and examined at the best of times – and even more so in a period where the vast majority of people are being forced to get by on less by ideologically-driven and unnecessary cuts. So, let’s take a look behind the headlines.

Adjusted vs unadjusted

In my monthly analyses, I always mention that I’m using the unadjusted statistics, but this month that point is deserving of its own section. The ONS statisticians make theoretical seasonal adjustments to the actual figures to fit what they think is happening – but the raw, unadjusted figures tell what is really happening to real people. In general – though not always – the adjusted figures will be kinder to the government, but the raw data represent real life, whichever way they go. Let’s compare Cameron’s self-congratulation with the real-life figures:

- “employment is up by 212,000 this quarter”. Employment is up, but actually by 397,000, not 212,000. This matches almost exactly the reduction (400,000) in the number of ‘economically inactive’ people – this is very significant, as we’ll see shortly.

- “unemployment is down by 50,000 this quarter”. Well, no it isn’t. Employment is actually UP by 95,000, from 2.506 million to 2.601 million.

- “the claimant count has actually fallen by 4,000″. The claimant count is actually down by almost 20,000 since the last quarter.

- “what that means is that since the election some 170,000 fewer people are on out-of-work benefits”. I can’t find any statistic in the tables to support this assertion. Whether you use the adjusted or unadjusted statistics, the claimant count is much higher than it was at the time of the election: 1,517,300 people vs 1,494,500 people according to the adjusted figures, or 1,569,900 vs 1,502,200 according to the unadjusted statistics.

So either Cameron got it completely wrong – or else he lied (again) to Parliament. Cameron’s claim differs by 398,000 from the actual (adjusted) number. Too big to realistically be a mistake – but just right for a ‘Big Lie’. As we’ve seen with the ‘1 million net new jobs’ claim, Cameron just can’t resist the opportunity to stretch his claims well beyond the point where they can be called true, for the sake of political point-scoring.

Take all of Cameron’s statements together with the actual statistics, and you get a very different picture from the one he’s trying to paint:

- Claimant count down for the quarter but unemployment actually up means more than 100,000 people losing their jobs but being denied access to needed benefits.

- Employment up, and economic inactivity down by the same amount, while unemployment rose. Economic inactivity figures primarily represent those who, by choice, are not earning wages nor claiming benefits – for example, full-time parents or those with a spouse earning enough to mean they don’t have to work. A reduction in economic inactivity, then, is by no means necessarily a good thing.

The fact that unemployment rose means that the government is not helping those who want to work to find jobs. Instead its economic policies are reducing our incomes so that those who previously didn’t want or need to work are now having to find jobs to make ends meet – while those who are unemployed and seeking work are unable to find it. This is borne out by the next set of statistics.

No dent in unemployment, especially long-term

Numbers in all categories of long-term unemployment (12-24 months and 24+ months) are up substantially. And, contrary to the Tories’ ‘scrounger’ demonisation (the shift worker looking up at the closed curtains of his unemployed neighbour tucked cosily in bed, as Osborne so ludicrously put it), this is not because of people simply preferring a cushy life on benefits. As of the latest quarterly figures, there are 2,528,000 people out of work, and only 475,000 vacancies for them to fight for. No matter what, there are more than 2 million people in this country for whom there is no job – and more than 5 people fighting for every single job there is – even assuming that every vacancy has people with the right skills and circumstances to be able to do it.

Sometimes it’s hard to be a woman…

As (I think!) Tammy Wynette put it so eloquently. And how right she was. In various ways, women continue to be penalised disproportionately under the coalition government – not just in terms of lost benefits and increased costs, but in employment:

Unemployment: women make up 59% of the increase in unemployment.

Single parent claimants: single parent claimants (who are predominantly female) of job-seekers’ allowance is up since the last quarter – and almost doubled (from 70,130 to 134,885) since this government took office.

Lost hours: British people worked fewer hours in the last year, and fewer compared to a quarter ago. While male workers, whether full- or part-time, lost only around 30 minutes from their working (and therefore paid) week, female workers lost an hour or more.

‘Twas tough in such a time to be alive, but to be young was very hell

It’s a very hard time to be young at the moment. Housing costs are making the dream of independence and one’s own home unattainable for huge numbers of young people. University debts have escalated massively under this government (and no amount of musical apology from Nick Clegg changes the fact). The government is targeting young people for the removal of entitlement to housing benefit.

And unemployment? Well, for the 16-17 and 18-24 age groups, unemployment is up sharply. For 16-17 year-olds, the rate has increased massively from 33% to 40%. In pure numbers terms, another 62,000 people in that age group are out of work, and another 56,000 18-24 year-olds.

The working poor

Average wages increased slightly on the quarter, and since last year. However, they failed by a distance to keep pace with inflation – meaning that almost all of us are worse off under the coalition, no matter which period you look at. This means more working people pushed below the poverty line and need to claim housing benefit and income support – in spite of the government’s propaganda that implies that benefit-claimants are work-shy scroungers. This is probably exacerbated by the following segment.

The swing to part-time and low security continues

The number of people working part-time jumped by 59,000 compared to the previous quarter, while self-employment climbed by 55,000. While the government will try to spin the latter figure as showing that they are promoting enterprise, the reality is that most of these ‘self-employed’ jobs are either imposed by companies to avoid having to pay for sick leave, holidays and national insurance or represent people who are trying to make a living because they can’t find an employed position, but are by no means guaranteed to succeed.

Full-time employed positions have increased by only 30,000 since a year ago, while part-time positions have increased by 214,000 – a major factor in the fact that we’re working fewer hours as a nation, and being paid less too.

Productivity down

The government likes to claim that it’s pro-business and pro-enterprise, and – according to Cameron’s speech at his party’s conference earlier this month – that it’s making us leaner, meaner and more competitive. However, the statistics couldn’t contradict that claim more strongly.

Productivity per British worker is down – and is the lowest it has been since the government took office. That’s what happens when people feel under-valued, exploited, oppressed and abused – their hearts are no longer in their jobs and their output declines. Cameron and his government are crushing the spirits of British workers – or at least angering them so intensely that a de facto go-slow is taking place.

I’m sure there would be more bad news – because there always is – for disabled people, but the statistics on unemployment among the disabled are only updated every 3 months (which is a scandal in itself, really), so there’s nothing new to report yet compared to last month.

But the stats that have been published show, once again, that while there is some good news (in spite, rather than because of, the government), Cameron is presenting an extremely selective picture of the employment situation in Britain and shamelessly using it to pat himself, and his government, on the back – when in fact, the reality is that, for most of us, things are hard and getting harder. Most of us are in it together, while the Tories and their rich chums get richer and smugger – and applaud the orchestra fiddling as the Titanic sinks.

I wish I could say it’s not the norm.
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Employment statistics - Page 2 Empty Re: Employment statistics

Post by sickchip Wed Feb 27, 2013 9:47 pm

Cheers for the link, Ivan.

The hypocrisy and double standards are enough to repulse, and depress, any reasonable, and logical, mind.

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Post by Phil Hornby Wed Feb 27, 2013 9:55 pm

"He'll probably be better paid at the Sun. "

Not so sure, He'll probably be on performance-related pay and it will only take a small lapse of concentration in counting the number of teabags which he's slipped into the Newsroom's pot ....
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Post by bobby Wed Feb 27, 2013 10:34 pm

We must be fair to Herr Cameron and not dismiss all he says as lies.
What I hear him say is that there are record high jobs in the private sector which may be true?, which with what used to be a job for one person paying a proper wage with holiday and sick pay, have now been replaced by as sick chip said part time or agency workers. And absolutely no mention of the Public service workers who are still unemployed and who have lost jobs that under this Government will never return.
Another sign is to have full time jobs, with staff working a 12 hour shift, for every 5 or 6 employee’s it save on having to employ another, saving on employment tax’s holiday pay, sick pay, pension payments and milk in their coffee.
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Post by Ivan Wed Feb 27, 2013 10:55 pm

Every week at PMQT, Cameron repeats the lie that there are 1 million new private sector jobs. 196,000 of the apparent increase came about in October last year because of a statistical change that had nothing to do with job creation. Further education corporations and sixth-form college corporations in England were classified to the public sector up to March 2012 and to the private sector from June 2012.

200,000 of the jobs already existed in the public sector and the Tories just relabelled them. Most of the actual new jobs are part-time (often as few as eight hours a week) and poorly paid. Employment of those aged 16-24 is down by 110,000. The number of people who are in temporary work but want permanent jobs is up 90,000 and the number of part-timers who want full-time jobs is up 314,000. This government has done nothing of which it can be proud.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/comment/david-blanchflower/david-blanchflower-job-creation-the-numbers-dont-add-up-8211004.html
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Post by oftenwrong Wed Feb 27, 2013 11:10 pm

For the man who has just been declared redundant, to make the former Employer "leaner and fitter", the statistic for Unemployment is 100%.
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Post by skwalker1964 Wed Feb 27, 2013 11:11 pm

Ivan wrote:Every week at PMQT, Cameron repeats the lie that there are 1 million new private sector jobs. 196,000 of the apparent increase came about in October last year because of a statistical change that had nothing to do with job creation. Further education corporations and sixth-form college corporations in England were classified to the public sector up to March 2012 and to the private sector from June 2012.

200,000 of the jobs already existed in the public sector and the Tories just relabelled them. Most of the actual new jobs are part-time (often as few as eight hours a week) and poorly paid. Employment of those aged 16-24 is down by 110,000. The number of people who are in temporary work but want permanent jobs is up 90,000 and the number of part-timers who want full-time jobs is up 314,000. This government has done nothing of which it can be proud.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/comment/david-blanchflower/david-blanchflower-job-creation-the-numbers-dont-add-up-8211004.html

The impact of zero-hours contracts cannot be discounted either; these are believed to be increasing rapidly, although nobody seems to record them as a specific measurable.

Cameron cannot possibly be unaware of the 196k reclassified jobs. Here's how the warning that appears in the stats appears:

Employment statistics - Page 2 196k_w10

Unmissable.
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Post by tlttf Thu Feb 28, 2013 7:34 am

Ivan chill out. Nowhere have I written a lie or a deviation, did you (finally) actually read the post. The report comes from "FullFact", you might have heard of them as you quote some of your info gained from there. Once again nothing libellous and nothing to apologise for, get to grips mate.

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Post by oftenwrong Thu Feb 28, 2013 11:46 am

Every Government we've had since 1945 has at some time or other massaged the unemployment statistics. Australian experience is not dissimilar to ours:

The number of long-term jobseekers - or people on Newstart who are required to look for work - has remained relatively flat - increasing from about 155,000 to 164,000 over the three years to July 2012.

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=14106
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Post by boatlady Thu Feb 28, 2013 1:09 pm

Re zero hours contracts - a local employer, to which many public sector jobs have been transferred, has recently made an offer of early retirement to a large number of full-time staff, with the explicit aim of readvertising those posts as zero hour, or casual vacancies, obviously on a lower wage, and obviously with less job security, fringe benefits etc.
Many public sector posts locally are being transferred to this organisation, on the premise that terms and conditions will be protected - if this is protection, I'm a bit worried - i believe my husband's post is among those being considered for transfer in the near future to cut local authority costs.
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Post by skwalker1964 Thu Feb 28, 2013 2:01 pm

boatlady wrote:Re zero hours contracts - a local employer, to which many public sector jobs have been transferred, has recently made an offer of early retirement to a large number of full-time staff, with the explicit aim of readvertising those posts as zero hour, or casual vacancies, obviously on a lower wage, and obviously with less job security, fringe benefits etc.
Many public sector posts locally are being transferred to this organisation, on the premise that terms and conditions will be protected - if this is protection, I'm a bit worried - i believe my husband's post is among those being considered for transfer in the near future to cut local authority costs.

Hi Boatlady,

Not sure from what you've written if you're equating ZHC and casual contracts or not, but there is a crucial difference. In a casual contract, there's no obligation on either the employer or employee to offer hours/accept hours offered. Casual contracts are a major problem in some areas but can work well for people in others.

ZHCs, by contrast, oblige the employee to take the hours but place no obligation on the employer to offer any, so it's a very one-sided arrangement. Effectively, the employer gets to put the employee on a permanent 'on-call' status without having to pay him/her for being available - it's a form of bonded labour, effectively, and a very insidious one. All the risk and inconvenience is placed on the employee while the employer gets this work done when he wants to at minimal cost.

TUPE (transfer of undertakings and employment) is a very limited protection. Employers take people on under their previous terms, but can change them at any time merely by arguing 'economic necessity', so employees are at the mercy of the employer's whims, basically. I hope things work out so you and your hubby don't find yourselves having to deal with it!
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Post by boatlady Thu Feb 28, 2013 3:44 pm

Steve, obviously, I'm keeping my ear to the ground on this - in the discussion I was involved in, no-one was very sure whether zero hour contract or casual work was envisaged - some of the stuff some of my old man's managers haver been saying implies that for his service management would like to impose zero hours contracts, once people have been TUPE'd across.
He's already been told he should keep his mobile on when not on duty, in case they need him - at the moment this can't be enforced, but I do think that's the way things may be going.
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Post by oftenwrong Thu Feb 28, 2013 5:30 pm

"....He's already been told he should keep his mobile on when not on duty, in case they need him...."

Slave Traders are alive and well in Coalition Britain. It's apparently now possible to employ someone for 168 hours a week with no commitment to pay them anything if no work is actually offered.
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Post by Phil Hornby Thu Feb 28, 2013 9:13 pm

For anyone to whom it may concern, I suggest that they do a bit of reading on the provisions of TUPE ( The Transfer of Undertaking Regulations ) and the case law involving post-transfer change to contracts of employment.

Look especially at the important distinctions between ' by reason of the transfer ' and 'connected to the transfer'...
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Post by boatlady Fri Mar 01, 2013 10:36 am

Thanks for that, Phil, I'll have a look
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Post by Ivan Sat Mar 23, 2013 5:16 pm

Alex Andreou writes:-

On the employment rate, many have expressed doubts about the claim repeated with almost drummerlike monotony that “one million new private sector jobs have been created”. We know, for instance, that there has been an astonishing surge of hundreds of thousands of people who show as “self-employed”. We know there have been strange transfers of public service jobs directly to the private sector, as support services are privatised in every department.

The OBR hints at these irregularities in their executive summary: “The labour market continues to surprise on the upside, despite the continued weakness of GDP growth.” As a former civil servant, I would be tempted to read that as “there is something really dodgy about these figures”. There is. People on unpaid internships, training schemes, apprenticeships and workfare schemes, are counted as employed. 140,000 of them are part of the government’s job creation success story.

I never understood Hollywood’s obsession with the Evil Genius as the film villain of choice. It has always been clear that, given a position of power, a Clueless Idiot has infinitely more potential to cause harm. What I find astonishing is that Conservative MPs have not yet grabbed Osborne by his expensively tailored lapels and thrown him in the Thames.


http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/03/george-osbornes-economic-policy-based-lies
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Post by oftenwrong Sat Mar 23, 2013 6:01 pm

The miracle increase in Employment during a Recession comes out of the same pork-barrel as Gideon's "advance counting" that so surprised Ed Balls in Parliament six months ago. The Chancellor's "receipts" incorporated the anticipated revenue from flogging the next tranche of wavelengths to the phone companies.

Unfortunately the precise figures may be somewhat less in reality.
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Employment statistics - Page 2 Empty Long-term unemployment

Post by sickchip Sun May 12, 2013 9:06 am

We've had more or less around 2.5 million unemployed for decades now - it is the nature of the modern employment market where permanent jobs are far fewer and there is more 'temporary contracts' and use by employers of employment agencies.

It is a lie to suggest we can get everybody into work. The whole tory angle of 'we are on the side of workers not shirkers' is a lie designed to fool working people into scapegoating/blaming 'anybody on benefits....and into getting angry/jealous of those on benefits.

Can anybody here really envisage a time when we will have much less than 2.5 million unemployed? If anything, in years to come, we will have more unemployment as technology increasingly makes people redundant. Unless we adopt a radically different approach to employment - more jobsharing, reduced working week, etc - coupled with a drastic reduction in wage differentials / sharing the spoils more fairly and evenly, than we will never really get to grips with this issue.

The tory idea that you incentivise people into poorly paid jobs (where they'll still probably require 'benefit top ups' to their meagre wage) by cutting their benefits is 'arse about face' to say the least. All that achieves is increased levels of poverty and hardship in one of the wealthiest nations in the world.
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Post by boatlady Sun May 12, 2013 10:36 am

I remember, when I was much younger, hearing a debate about the inevitability of increased unemployment in the future as the impetus of the Industrial Revolution died away, and more jobs became mechanised.
As I remember at the time, we were inclined to think of it as a Utopian vision - more leisure, more opportunities for self-actualisation, a flowering of the arts etc - what we've got is a return to Victorian levels of squalor and starvation for the many while the 1% sail serenely over the surface - and usually don't even know what life is like for the 99%
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Post by sickchip Sun May 12, 2013 10:59 am

boatlady,

Excellent post! Spot on.

I too remember hearing the same things years ago. The question is: if governments knew it would happen.....why was there no planning put in place to ensure society remained balanced and harmonious?
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Post by boatlady Sun May 12, 2013 6:43 pm

One's tempted to think there was indeed some planning - to ensure the current situation of a pool of unemployed labour, so desperate for wages that they will accept low wages and loss of employment rights
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Post by oftenwrong Sun May 12, 2013 9:54 pm

Some people will remember the advent of Computers, which would SAVE paper, and allow workers to complete a week's work in FOUR days or less.

The machines would take care of the drudgery, while we could enjoy increased leisure time in which to improve our minds, and make the most of our lifespan.

Are we nearly there yet?
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Employment statistics - Page 2 Empty 1 million workers on zero-hour contracts. Unionising this new working class?

Post by James Gibson Mon Aug 05, 2013 10:12 am

The official numbers for workers on zero-hour contracts have turned out to be grossly inaccurate as a recent poll has revealed that over 1 million UK employees are hired under these contracts by over 1,000 different employers. The working class isn’t what it once was, however zero-hour contracts pose an age-old threat to the livelihoods of ordinary British people. As in the time before trade unions, zero-hour contracts strip workers of their rights and put them in a dynamic that sees the employer with ultimate control. Employees are guaranteed no pay week on week and are often not granted sick or holiday pay. With zero-hour contracts in play, the legal frameworks for protecting workers almost become completely invalid – and what’s more shocking is that over 1 million workers are now being hired on zero-hour terms.

The poor job market means that more and more workers have no choice but to accept employment on a zero-hour contract. For many, the alternatives are quite dire indeed. The welfare state simply doesn’t protect workers from the crisis of capitalism and the job market pains that follow; this can be proven by the UK’s growing reliance on food banks to feed ordinary people. Food banks are something you’d associate with far-away developing nations, not one of the world’s biggest economies. This also goes to show that wealth on a national scale doesn’t necessarily translate to better lives for people on the ground floor – despite what neoliberal theory has to say. Profits have been rising for many of the UK’s top companies, however this money hasn’t been ‘trickling down’ to the general population.

The gap between rich and poor is growing as wealth and power becomes consolidated in the social circles of upper middle-class Britain. Because of huge competition in the job market, the only way to get a high-paying position these days is through social connections and affluent parents. This situation is particularly true for investment banks, lawyer firms and newspapers. The most influential and powerful institutions here in Britain are dominated by people from upper middle-class backgrounds; these high-paying jobs are reserved for the privately educated. I like to think of education and social connections as the trenches of class warfare, and unfortunately it is these trenches that give Britain’s wealthy the upper hand in this age-old struggle.

Unionizing a zero-hours workforce is a lot different from unionizing the old fashioned single-industry one. Employees on zero-hour contracts will often find themselves working for two or more different companies – sometimes these companies are even in entirely different industries. Unions haven’t adapted to accommodate to zero-hours workers; which under new figures represent 4% of the working population. As more and more workers take up on these contracts, unions are going to need to rethink their strategy to defend the rights of this new largely unrepresented demographic.
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Post by Mel Sun Sep 08, 2013 10:25 am

The number of workers on zero hours contracts could be as high as 5.5 million, suggesting a "growing sub class" of insecure, low paid employment, according to new research.

A study of 5,000 members of the Unite union found that more than one in five were on zero hours contracts - under which workers do not know if they have work from one week to the next - earning an average of £500 a month.

The figure is more than five times higher than previous estimates and was described as "staggering" by the union.

The study, by the social survey company Mass1, said to be the largest of its kind on the subject, suggested that the under 30s are more likely to be on a zero hours contract with half of respondents falling into the 16-30 category.

Unite said the findings also pointed to employers using zero hours contracts to avoid paying holiday pay and sick pay, with just over a third saying they do not get holiday pay and 77% receiving no sick pay. Only around one in seven said they wanted to stay on the zero-hours contracts, which the union maintained "bust a hole" in arguments that a majority of workers choose them.
MSN News extract today.

A double delight for the Tories, false boasting of lower unemployment and mission accomplished for the rich employers.
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Post by oftenwrong Sun Sep 08, 2013 11:24 am

Every government since 1945 has "massaged" unemployment figures, so the Tories are not unique in presenting the figures in a creative manner. The difference is that a Labour government accepts the need for Trade Unions in order to see fair-play, whilst the Tory "Employers Union" sees them as merely an engine for profit-reduction.

A General Election in 2015 should see a victory of the needy over the greedy - but will it?
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Post by Mel Sun Sep 08, 2013 12:43 pm

"A General Election in 2015 should see a victory of the needy over the greedy - but will it? ."

The problem with that as I see it is that perhaps a great number of the electorate can't or or are unable to even bother to realise the difference.
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Post by bobby Sun Sep 08, 2013 2:59 pm

Mel wrote:
 The problem with that as I see it is that perhaps a great number of the electorate can't or or are unable to even bother to realise the difference.

Hello Mel. If they don't know the difference by now, perhaps Ed Miliband and the rest of the Labour party need to shout a bit louder, the electorate can not hear silence.
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Post by Mel Sun Sep 08, 2013 4:18 pm

Good point bobby. The problem is as I see it from many of the young working families that I speak to here in Sussex, is that they are working their butts off, have no time for politics and therefore perhaps catch a few lines from the Daily Mail and most Tory supportive rags, especially the Sun from which they are brainwashed. "They are all the same" is the norm feeling. Those who have been affected such as medical staff, the sick, the disabled and their carers, teachers and perhaps the redundant Police along with the unemployed are mainly the only ones who seem to detest these mercenary Tory barstuards.
Apathy prevails and I doubt if Ed can bring many to their senses.
 
Keep well my friend.
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Post by sickchip Wed Sep 18, 2013 6:46 am

Regarding unemployment stats: do we really consider 18-20yr olds being paid £4.98ph, or the millions above 20yr old on minimum wage (£6.19ph) to be employed - aren't they merely being forced to slave for subsistence funds? The majority of these people will require some form of benefit to supplement their 'slave wages' - as will millions of others on little more than minimum wage. Are people aware that when the Tories brag about the jobs being created in the private sector, that 78% of the jobs 'created' since they came to power have been for £8ph or less? Can we really consider all these millions on low wages - requiring benefit top ups to their meagre wages, to be properly, constructively, and productively employed?

Regarding housing: when most people are struggling to pay rents - never mind get a mortgage, why is an increase in property prices being welcomed as a good thing...............no doubt the people that welcome a boom in property prices will be the same people moaning when 'housing benefit' costs rise.

Regarding Osborne's touted economic recovery: are we in less debt now than when the Tories came to power?
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Post by Mel Wed Sep 18, 2013 9:37 am

"The majority of these people will require some form of benefit to supplement their 'slave wages' - as will millions of others on little more than minimum wage. Are people aware that when the Tories brag about the jobs being created in the private sector, that 78% of the jobs 'created' since they came to power have been for £8ph or less?"

Good points chip. What amazes me is when for example at PM's Questions and Question Time on BBC, Labour MP's fail to put these points over and allow the Tories to puff out their chests on false pretences. Further more the media/press do not make the point.

Osborne also bragging about his so called "recovery". Miniscule that it really is, is getting away with it when the real reason is down to bank lending and the mass injection of cash into the economy by way of Quantative Easing. It's all a bloody con and the people don't realise it.
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Post by oftenwrong Wed Sep 18, 2013 10:21 am

sickchip wrote:....
The majority of these people will require some form of benefit to supplement their 'slave wages' - as will millions of others on little more than minimum wage. Are people aware that when the Tories brag about the jobs being created in the private sector, that 78% of the jobs 'created' since they came to power have been for £8ph or less? ....
The benefit required to supplement slave wages is of course a Tory subsidy to Employers. What boss would complain about such an arrangement?
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Post by Mel Wed Sep 18, 2013 1:03 pm

"The benefit required to supplement slave wages is of course a Tory subsidy to Employers. What boss would complain about such an arrangement?."

Indeed Indeed OW.thumbsup 
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Post by tlttf Wed Sep 18, 2013 5:44 pm

I appreciate that employers get away with murder regarding the government subsidising a company's wages I also appreciate it's still happening, however this was started by messr's Brown and Blair to hide the true facts regarding unemployment, if the present government does the same surely it's ok?

In reality, all subsidies to the company wage bill should be stopped, the only subsidies should be for apprenticeships and to help companies relocate to certain areas. If a company requires skilled people to do this (it takes years to relocate) surely the local colleges, schools and UNi's should be involved in any talks regarding the skills needed and how to teach them?

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Post by Mel Wed Sep 18, 2013 7:23 pm

"In reality, all subsidies to the company wage bill should be stopped"

Ok and in that case employers should be made to make up the shortfall for a standard living wage for the workforce at bottom of the table, eh???

Unemployment was at its lowest ever under Blair even though as they all do is to massage the figs. This lot are pretending unemployment is coming down when in reality all that is happening is contract employment and part time work,mainly min wage or below in many cases. Cheap cheap labour, Tories ideology.
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Post by oftenwrong Wed Sep 18, 2013 7:32 pm

A cheap, compliant workforce. Tory heaven, Mel, don't you think?
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Post by sickchip Wed Sep 18, 2013 7:35 pm

Mel wrote:Unemployment was at its lowest ever under Blair even though as they all do is to massage the figs. This lot are pretending unemployment is coming down when in reality all that is happening is contract employment and part time work,mainly min wage or below in many cases. Cheap cheap labour, Tories ideology.
Exactly!

The UK needs general strikes, persistent street protests, defacing of ballot slips at election time, occupation of buildings/spaces associated with officialdom/establishment, etc.

- Of course, it'll never happen.....we're a nation of masochistic, measley cap doffers bowing and curtseying as we walk backwards into Dickensian Britain.


Last edited by sickchip on Wed Sep 18, 2013 10:44 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Post by Mel Wed Sep 18, 2013 9:10 pm

"A cheap, compliant workforce. Tory heaven, Mel, don't you think?."

Absolutely OW my friend.
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Employment statistics - Page 2 Empty The 'self-employment' sham.

Post by Bernadette Mon Sep 01, 2014 10:52 am

Every day the gap between real life experience of the economy, and the version of events offered by the government and mainstream media, seems to get wider. It is surely only a matter of time before somebody tells us we have never had it so good.

The latest
employment figures have been trumpeted as a sign of success by government ministers, and there seems little appetite in the mainstream media to question this view. The fact that pay is falling in real terms, and many jobs involve exploitative terms and conditions, is not seen as a major issue. Very little attention is paid to the invisible 1.07 million people who are counted as unemployed but who do not or cannot claim Jobseeker’s Allowance.

Some people just disappear from the statistics altogether. I personally know two middle-aged individuals who are unable to work and have been utterly defeated by the current punitive benefits system. They are both completely without support and forced to rely on family to survive. There must be many more like them across the UK. I tweeted about this today, and received a heartbreaking response from @sharpsecret: "Been supporting our disabled son for mnths. No benefits or LA support. Now we’ve run out of money & have to sell our house."

As BBC News reported "Self-employment is one of the big stories of the recovery. One in seven workers in the UK is now working for themselves." The government hails this rise in self-employment as some sort of entrepreneurial renaissance, when in reality it is part of the increasingly precarious nature of work, alongside zero-hours contracts and short-term agency work. Employers get all the benefits of a committed workforce, with very few of the responsibilities.

One employment lawyer has described the rise in self-employment as the "contracting out of employment rights." People that would previously have had an employer paying National Insurance, sick pay, holiday pay, maternity pay etc, now have no choice but to be ‘self-employed’, losing rights and taking on all the responsibilities and risk that entails.

The son of a friend is now ‘self-employed’ delivering vehicles around the country. If he delivers a vehicle from Liverpool to Southampton for instance, the company may say that should take six hours, so he gets paid for six hours. If the traffic is bad and it takes longer, he doesn’t get paid any more. And he doesn’t get paid for his time or expenses on the return journey, so he often hitchhikes home. The company gets the job done at minimal cost, and he earns a derisory hourly rate.

When covering the rise in self-employment the BBC, rather ironically perhaps, chose to report on Hermes, the parcel delivery service, saying, "Parcel delivery firm Hermes uses 9,500 self-employed workers. It calls them 'lifestyle couriers'. Martijn de Lange, operations director at Hermes, says staff like the freedom of choosing how much work they do. They often fit the job around other work or childcare." He went on to say that people must be happy with the pay, otherwise they wouldn’t take the contracts.

The BBC may have forgotten a Newsnight report from 3rd December 2010 which alleged that Hermes' self-employed couriers should be regarded as direct employees, and also accused the company of exploiting them, claiming they were paid as little as 50p for deliveries and were liable to have work withdrawn if they went off sick. Or they may have been unaware of more recent reports, like the story of Joy Leader, 56, who had worked for Hermes for 14 years but had her contract cancelled because she lost a handheld device.

When MPS recently investigated zero-hours contracts they found "evidence of Jobcentre Plus staff putting pressure on jobseekers to accept work without guaranteed hours and threatening sanctions if they turned the job down or tried to leave when insufficient hours were available."

The truth is that the employment figures look relatively good because many people have been bullied into, or otherwise forced to accept, highly unsuitable and exploitative work, for employers who are reaping the rewards. Workers are caught in a pincer movement between bosses and the DWP.

Employers know that if they offer someone on JSA a job, however low the pay or poor the conditions, they have very little choice other than to accept it. Refusing any ‘reasonable offer’ of employment will trigger sanctions. And of course, it’s the Jobcentre which decides whether an offer is reasonable, not the person who will actually have to do the job.

If there is a recovery, it’s a recovery for business, not for workers. If we are on the road to prosperity, we are leaving too many people behind


This is reposted from my blog on www.ekklesia.co.uk For original with links, please go to http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/20729
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Post by oftenwrong Mon Sep 01, 2014 5:28 pm

True, all true, but will the downtrodden masses vote to remove the Coalition from Office next May, or just grumble?
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Post by Ivan Wed Jan 21, 2015 11:47 pm

Low Pay Britain

The Tories like to boast that two million jobs have been created under this government, but the reality for many workers is that they are in highly flexible, insecure part-time work with ultra low pay, or precarious self-employment.

According to the Office for National Statistics, there are 6.8 million part-time workers in the UK. The Resolution Foundation estimates that 3.4 million employees are currently earning below the National Insurance threshold; by not making contributions they are putting their future state pension at risk.

A snapshot of all customer assistant jobs being advertised on the Tesco website on one day showed 96% of the 785 posts were part time, sometimes just a few hours a week and earning contracted hours amounting to as little as £200 a month.

The minimum wage is being circumvented. Transline uses apprentices and therefore the apprentice rate of national minimum wage applies - currently £2.73 per hour. The workers on these low rates who were spoken to by ‘Channel 4 Dispatches’ said they had no idea they were apprentices, and that they received no specialist training apart from their normal job induction.

http://www.channel4.com/info/press/news/low-pay-britain-channel-4-dispatches
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Post by boatlady Thu Jan 22, 2015 1:10 pm

The most worrying feature, for me, has been the growth of zero-hours contracts - this is pretty much the norm in my town - and I don't know how a young person can even begin to contemplate embarking on adult life, with all that entails in terms of householder status, parenthood, and planning for retirement when they don't know from one week to the next whether they will have enough to pay the rent.

As a tax-payer, I have to say, as well, I do very much resent my taxes going to subsidise wealthy employers in the form of in-work benefits being paid to employed people - surely if someone is worth employing, they should be worth paying a proper wage for their work?
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Post by bobby Fri Jan 23, 2015 12:02 am

Absolutely boatlady, How can it be right when low paid workers are in fact subsidising their own jobs, in order to make the already rich even richer.
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