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From The Socialist newspaper, 22 September 2009
Youth unemployment hits record level
Youht Fight For Jobs protest outside parliament , photo S.Sachs-Eldridge (Click to enlarge)
THE ANNOUNCEMENT by the government on Wednesday 16 September of 2.5 million unemployed was met by public protests organised by Youth Fight for Jobs (YFJ).
Officially UK unemployment is 7.9% of the total workforce, up from 5.6% only one year ago. Of the total unemployed nearly one million are young people aged between 16 and 24 years - a 14 year high. This means that one in five young people cannot find work and the situation is likely to get worse with only one quarter of employers planning to hire workers aged between 16 and 18 years.
Despite finding hundreds of billions of pounds to rescue failed banks, the government's response to solving youth unemployment has been totally inadequate. Chancellor Alistair Darling has trumpeted the government's one billion pound Future Jobs Fund (FJF), available to private and public employers.
However, FJF lasts for only six months and doesn't apply to 16 and 17 year olds. It only applies to the long-term unemployed, fuelling the suspicion that FJF is all about massaging the unemployment figures rather than providing real jobs.
Another fear is that FJF placements will simply occupy positions which otherwise would have to be filled by workers on better wages and conditions.
Youth Fight for Jobs is campaigning for permanent jobs at decent rates of pay and working conditions. The jobs crisis is a product of the general crisis within capitalism, so only socialist policies can provide a lasting solution. YFJ has called a national demonstration on 28 November for real jobs, for free education.
See www.youthfightforjobs.com
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The coronavirus crisis has laid bare the class character of society in numerous ways. It is making clear to many that it is the working class that keeps society running, not the CEOs of major corporations.
The results of austerity have been graphically demonstrated as public services strain to cope with the crisis.
The government has now ripped up its 'austerity' mantra and turned to policies that not long ago were denounced as socialist. But after the corona crisis, it will try to make the working class pay for it, by trying to claw back what has been given.
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In The Socialist 22 September 2009:
Prepare political challenge to cuts agenda
Education
Higher education - cuts cuts cuts!
Universities in crisis - Join Socialist Students
Defend education - stop the £2 billion cuts in spending
TUC
TUC congress: Anger on the fringes, inaction at the top
War and occupation
Afghanistan: An unwinnable war
Postal workers strike
Postal workers strike as national ballot continues
Vestas
Vestas workers determined to continue fight for jobs
Youth fight for jobs
Youth unemployment hits record level
Future Jobs Fund - massaging the figures
Socialist Party news and analysis
Campaign for a Salford workers' MP
International socialist news
Socialist Party MEP denounces "campaign of fear" on Lisbon Treaty
Workers' fightback grows in Italy
Socialist Party workplace news
Engineering construction: Stewards' forum recommends bosses' offer Workers should reject!
Portsmouth shipbuilders vote for strike
Bosses ask JCB workers for sacrifice
Battle over pensions means strike threat at Corus
Liverpool bin workers score victory
Socialist Party reviews
Listening to Grasshoppers by Arundhati Roy
The Dirty Thirty - Heroes of the Miners' Strike
The Anti-Flag album 'The People or the Gun'
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