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Tories and unemployment benefits
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pooley
pooley
501 posts

Re: Tories and unemployment benefits
Aug 18, 2008, 13:47
grufty jim wrote:
pooley wrote:
As an employer, I find it extraordinary that there are more people than jobs (as you claim, I don't know the figures so cant agree or disagree).

pooley, it took me (literally) 30 seconds on google to discover the following (direct from the UK government's National Statistics Office):

The unemployment rate was 5.4 per cent for the three months to June 2008, up 0.2 over the previous quarter but unchanged over the year. The number of unemployed people increased by 60,000 over the quarter and by 15,000 over the year, to reach 1.67 million.
...
There were 634,900 job vacancies for the three months to July 2008, down 47,400 over the previous quarter and down 23,200 over the year. Most sectors showed falls in vacancies over the quarter with the largest falls occurring in distribution, hotels and restaurants (down 17,700) and finance and business services (down 16,200).


So there are almost a million more unemployed people than there are jobs available. It's a point that needs to be answered by those who argue that actively punishing those who are on long-term benefits (making them work, in often very unpleasant jobs, for substantially lower than minimum wage) is in any way acceptable.

And it's worth pointing out that extra million is just going to get larger during this economic downturn.



I must admit, I wasn't interested enough to look it up! but am glad that you did....

I think, and this may not be popular, that if you are on benefits for a long time - and are not a full time parent, disabled, whatever - then it is only right to put something back into the community.
It doesn't have to be a degrading job. Volunteer work - with OAP's, Children, Drug dependents, homeless are all worthwhile. As are sports programs for hard up children, counselling, samaritans - fuck the list is pretty much endless.
Get out there, help out, put down the PSP!!!!
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