A slight fall in the most recent set of unemployment figures hides the reality facing millions. The fall has only occurred because of an increase in part-time work. And the number of people claiming unemployment benefit is still going up. By the end of 2012 almost a million people will have been out of work for more than a year.
There was a slight fall in the number of young people unemployed as well. And yet more young people than ever are now long-term unemployed – showing the failure of the Con-Dems’ ‘youth contract’, aimed specifically at this group. Recent figures showed that the number of unemployed young people across Europe has increased by 50% since 2008.
Tony Mulhearn, Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition mayoral candidate in Liverpool said: “Unemployment is a blight on our society. It ruins lives, it wastes people’s potential and it costs money. At a time of horrifically high unemployment the policy of both the Con-Dem government and local Labour councils of cutting jobs is lunacy.
“In the Liverpool area hundreds of jobs will be cut in the private sector. 100 MMP workers in Bootle were sacked, over 220 jobs will be lost at Dairy Crest in Aintree and thousands of jobs are being cut in the public sector.
“I stand for opposition to all the cuts. I am advocating a mass social house-building programme across the city. This would not only help to alleviate the thousands of people waiting for social housing, it would create jobs and apprenticeships in the construction industry.”
The Socialist Party demands:
- An end to job cuts, save our public services
- Scrap all slave-labour workfare schemes, a day’s pay for a day’s work
- A minimum wage of £8 an hour for all
- Open the books – when companies claim they can’t afford to keep workers on, they must show us where the money has gone!
- Massive investment in a programme of public works to create socially useful jobs
