Martin Mansfield

The Welsh Government has announced the latest in a series of active labour market policies which prove that governments do not have to stand idly by while unemployment soars.

‘Jobs Growth Wales’ will create at least 4,000 new job opportunities a year across Wales for unemployed young people, aged 16-24. Other programme strands will target help to graduates and assist micro businesses to grow as well as creating jobs within the green energy sector, helping to meet the Welsh Government’s commitment to reducing carbon emissions.

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Anjum Klair

Continuing with our reporting on employment black spots in Britain, the unemployment data released today shows that Harringay is the hardest place in Britain to find a job. In Harringay there are over twenty five dole claimants chasing every vacancy. Since we have been reporting on employment blackspots (March 2011) Harringay has appeared in the top 10 every month, and in June Harringay had again been the hardest place to find a job.

Our previous analysis in May which examined the unemployment data from March 2005 to March 2011 found strong evidence of persistent poor local job prospects, with London being one of the worst hit areas of the country. Four London Boroughs including Hackney, Haringey, and Lewisham have been in the top ten employment blackspots in Britain for five of the last seven years. The figures today show that four London boroughs are still in the top 10, Harringay, Hackney, Lewisham and Redbridge.

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Nicola Smith

Today at PMQ’s David Cameron claimed that there were more women in work now than ‘at the time of the election’. This is correct – but also deeply misleading. The facts are that between April – June 2010 and June – August 2011:

• The number of women aged 16 and over in the population rose by 194,000 from 25,494,000 to 25,688,000
• The number of women aged 16 and over in work rose by 25,000 from 13,489,000 to 13,523,00
• The working age female employment rate (16-64) fell by 0.1 per cent from 65.5 to 65.4
• The number of women aged 16 and over unemployed rose by 77,000 from 992,000 to 1,069,000 – the highest level since 1988
• The unemployment rate for women aged 16 and over rose by 0.5 per cent from 6.8 per cent to 7.3 per cent – the highest rate since 1994
• The number of women in part-time work who want a full-time job rose by 99,000.

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Scarlet Harris

Another month, another horrendous set of labour market statistics.

While men’s unemployment has risen more sharply than women’s this month, it’s still worth taking a quick look at what’s happening to women’s unemployment.

(spoiler: the answer is “nothing good”)

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Nicola Smith

Faced with the highest level of unemployment for 17 years Chris Grayling has been touring the studios to set out his explanation for this growing social and economic disaster, explaining that:

It is clear that we are seeing the effect of the international economic crisis on the UK labour market.

The premise is presumably that levels of  job creation and job loss in the UK are being driven by falls in confidence resulting from the ongoing  Eurozone crisis and slowing global demand. This is simply incorrect. Today’s figures relate to June, July and August 2011. This is a period that followed nine months of economic stagnation and the start of the sharpest cuts in public spending in decades. Unemployment is a lagging indicator – the data are now reflecting the consequences of our stagnant and depressed economy.

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Philip Pearson

The solar industry is powering green jobs growth across the UK, on a day when the Environmental Audit Committee has warned the Government that its decision review our climate targets in 2014 undermine investor certainty in our green economy. It “would put achieving our 20050 target in jeopardy”, the committee says. The 4^th Carbon Budget (recommended by the Committee on Climate Change earlier this year) represents:

“the minimum needed to ensure the 2050 emissions reduction target is met. The prospect of the review changing the budgets in itself undermines the benefit of having longer-term certainty about Government policy that investors in low-carbon need.”

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Nicola Smith

The Government’s rebuttal to today’s damning IFS report has been to claim:

The IFS acknowledge that Universal Credit will substantially reduce child poverty. It will make work pay for the first time, tackling in-work poverty and lift over one million people, including 450,000 children, out of poverty. Our wide-ranging reforms will have a dynamic impact on some of the poorest families, encouraging people into work, many for the first time, and improving the life chances of children at an early age.

They are partly right. The IFS do acknowledege Universal Credit (UC) will have some positive concequences. But the press release accompanying their report is titled ‘Universal Credit not enough to prevent a decade of rising poverty’ – suggesting they question its overall impact.

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Richard Exell

Today’s report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies has deservedly won a great deal of attention. There’s some startling figures, and not just about what’s going to happen to people in poverty. Take this, for instance:

at its low point, real median household income is forecast to be 7% lower in 2012–13 than it was in 2009–10, and to remain below its 2009–10 level until at least 2015–16.

In other words, by the latest legal date for the next general election, middle-income families will still be worse off than they were at the last election. The Telegraph has pointed out that “a typical couple with two children would be £2,080 worse off in 2013 in real terms than they were in 2010.” With remarkable restraint, the authors describe this as an “unprecedented collapse in living standards.”

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Richard Exell

A new recession is starting to look more likely than not. Today, the GMB pointed out that the number of jobs lost in local authorities since the general election has passed the 100,000 mark and the CIPD reports that 610,000 public sector jobs are likely to  be lost by 2016 – two hundred thousand more than the forecast from the Office for Budget Responsibility.

Last week, I reported that two-thirds of managers think a double-dip recession is likely and now a survey of finance directors finds 43% of them thinking along the same lines. I think they’re probably right.

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Philip Pearson

The first carbon capture plant was bound to be expensive. Perhaps the Government’s new carbon tax is behind Scottish Power’s threat to pull the plug on the £1bn carbon capture trial project at its Longannet plant (Scotland).

At 2.3 megawatts, Longannet  is the third largest coal plant in Europe. The CO2 tax is payable on any emissions that aren’t captured. But the Chancellor’s Manchester speech can’t have helped the investor climate by dampening climate change ambitions. Faced with such indecision, new carbon capture campaigns in Yorkshire, Building the pipeline together, and the TUC are calling on Government and industry to get moving, and realise the huge jobs and climate benefits from CCS.

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