Long term unemployment: the grim facts and the real threat to future prosperity
It was reported today that the number of long term unemployed has risen by 37,000 to 663k. Such a stat reveals a huge level of serious personal hardship. Yet, as I have written here before, it also represents, if you like, the real hangover that will haunt our future economy. The simple fact is that – for all the “get on yer bike” schemes that a government may experiment with – long term unemployment crushes people’s wspirit in such a way that it always leaves a proportion unable to work for the duration of their working lives. This was true in the 30s, it was true in the 80s and it is true today. While the Tories harp on about prudence, the reality is that this level of unemployment will inevitably erode the country’s futurre tax base and leave thousands of people permanently reliant on government assistance.
Another point worth making is this: while unemployment stands at 2.46 million, there are less than 500,000 vacancies in the economy. Quite simply, people#s willingness to work now has very little, if anything, to do with the level of unemployment.
Reader Comments
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Your quite right that long term unemployment is a scourge on the lives of those blighted by it, creating an underclass within the country which is effectively paid to be quiet. Unfortunately, as you point out Government benefit to work schemes have proved costly failures, specifically ‘New Deal’, the Tories toyed with a similar scheme in the early ’90′s, and indeed the previous YTS scheme also faced the same problems and they felt (rightly) that a ‘New Deal’ type scheme it would be ineffective. The numbers of long term unemployed youths is now higher than before Labour introduced the New Deal, and the cost of the scheme (and other failures like the ILA’s) equal the money taken from the pension funds to pay for it, funds which are now in benefits – I’m now on a fixed benefit scheme as opposed to a final salary scheme because of that. Just consider for a moment the number of pensioners who are being hit for Gordon Browns failures – these were all his policy’s.
Back to the underclass, the only way to tackle this is to have world-class education. British schooling needs to improve significantly before it can pull kids who would otherwise fall back into gravitational hole of multi-generational welfare. In this regards, the single most significant potential for the incoming Conservative Govt. is Michael Goves plans for schools. Michael Gove btw was given up at birth by impoverished Glaswegian parents and adopted by an Aberdeen Fish Merchant and raised in that town.
Lastly, the ‘on your bike quote’ was made by Norman Tebbit, someone who lives in a past age, your reference to the 1980′s is strange given that MY reference is 1997 and the fact that we have a decade of Boom (then bust) since then. Stop focusing on the Tories, they are not the enemy, or even the subject here.
the unemployment rate today is a bit higher because of the recession but hopefully the economy would recover soon.:-;