Richard Exell

The latest National Statistics on Statutory Homelessness for England show that the number of homeless families and the number in temporary accommodation have stopped falling, and possibly started rising, though it is too early to say whether this is a trend.

Between the third quarter of 2010 and the same period in 2011  there was a 6% rise in the number of homeless households. There was a large increase in the number of families in bed and breakfast accommodation – up from 2,660 to 3,370 compared to the same quarter last year.

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Matt Dykes

A recent survey  of local authority directors and chief executives painted a bleak picture looking ahead at the next 12 months, as the second year of front loaded cuts to local government bites even deeper.

We saw in the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement that the combination of attacks on pay and pensions is imposing massive cuts on the average living standards of public sector workers.

Little wonder then that yesterday’s joint report from the Audit Commission and Local Government Association on the future of workforce pay and employment in local government gives us real cause for concern.

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Owen Tudor

The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) is meeting today and tomorrow and the euro zone crisis is of course top of the agenda. But the union solution is not the zero-sum game being played out by Europe’s leaders. Our position could be described as “neither Merkozy nor Cameron”, because we don’t think that Treaty change is necessary to solve the crisis.

In a tersely worded letter to Europe’s leaders, ETUC General Secretary Bernadette Segol has set out a different view about the nature of the crisis:

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• Worst retail growth for 6 months
  BRC “Retail Sales Monitor” reports that retail sales values for November were 1.6% lower on a like-for-like basis from twelve months previously. More expensive homewares and furniture were hardest hit. “Consumers are not quite in the Christmas mindset yet,” reports the Consortium – not a surprise!
• Is the UK facing a lost decade?
  Felicity Burch on the EEF blog has an excellent concise post on the risk of a ‘lost decade’. If we are to avoid that fate investment and exports must grow. This has happened in previous recoveries but, she points out, the shortage of credit and uncertainty about the Eurozone make things more difficult this time: “When cashflow is weak, credit is constrained, and the economic outlook is uncertain, there are bound to be question marks over investment decisions.”
• Decline in permanent appointments gathers pace in November
  The REC’s monthly “Report on Jobs” is “grim reading” says co-publisher KPMG, which hints unemployment may peak at over 3 million. Their pessimism is prompted by their latest survey of recruitment agencies, which shows a jobs market that “has been slowing since May but this slowdown has accelerated in the autumn.” Permanent placements by agencies fell for the second month running in November, and the rate of decline was the steepest since July 2009. Temporary placements continued a 28 month rise, but the pace of growth was “only slight.”

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Richard Exell

Today’s Report on Jobs from the Recruitment & Employment Confederation and KPMG provides more evidence that insecurity and austerity are most likely to bear down on people who already had the worst prospects. The Report includes the results from answers to a question in the November Markit Household Finance Index: “How do you think the level of income from your employment will have changed 12 months from now?”

Most people did not expect any change, a result the Report describes as ‘subdued’, but overall, more people said they expected their income to be higher than lower. Overall, 27% expected their income to be higher and 15% expected it top be lower. But this pattern did not apply to people in the lowest income group:

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Richard Exell

I have a post up at Left Foot Forward, looking at today’s report from the Recruitment and Employment Confederation, which confirms the conclusion that the labour market might as well be in recession. In addition, the latest Index of Production data show a continued slump in manufacturing and other production industries. Commenting on their report, KPMG have hinted that we might be headed for 3 million unemployed, which would take us back to levels last seen under Mrs Thatcher.

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Philip Pearson

“The game of ping-pong between the US and China at climate conferences is becoming more and more tiresome.”

The leader of the European Parliament delegation here in Durban added that, “Once again, the two biggest emitters of greenhouse gases are not contributing towards achieving a binding, global climate agreement.”

ITUC delegate Gladys Branche (Sierra Leone Labour Congress) reported from a meeting with the Africa Group that the conference President is now setting up a task force to draft a statement for the wider G77 group that will hopfully match the EU’s commitment to a second Kyoto Protocol. The ITUC focus through unions in the G77 group of developing nations can have a strong bloc influence on China itself. We have to sustain pressure to counter the “low ambition” lobby at work here in Durban.

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Duncan Weldon

Martin Wolf’s column in today’s FT is, as usual, a must-read.

He clearly and convincingly explains how the current crisis in the Eurozone is, at root, a balance of payments crisis. Looking at public debts or deficits between 1999 and 2007 would have failed to identify the countries currently afflicted whilst looking at current account deficits would have revealed the ‘at-risk’ nations to be Estonia, Portugal, Greece, Spain, Ireland and Italy.

As Wolf concludes:

This is, at its bottom, a balance of payments crisis. Resolving payments crises inside a large, closed economy requires huge adjustments, on both sides. That is truth. All else is commentary.

Austerity won’t resolve the fundamental issues – in the medium term it is simply killing growth, causing unnecessary suffering for the people of the ‘periphery’ and failing to deal with the fiscal deficits.

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Richard Exell

Divided We Stand: Why Inequality Keeps Rising, today’s report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, illuminates the debate on benefit levels and re-distribution. Of course, most of the initial comments have focused on the headlines about this country’s relative performance. The OECD has produced a very useful ‘Country Note‘ on the UK, with a stunning take-away quote up at the top:

Income inequality among working-age persons has risen faster in the United Kingdom than in any other OECD country since 1975. From a peak in 2000 and subsequent fall, it has been rising again since 2005 and is now well above the OECD average.

And the data shows that the UK is up there with Mexico, Turkey, the USA and Israel as one of the titans of inequality:

(Inequality here is measured using the Gini coefficient.) But there’s also interesting reading further down and in the detail of the report. In particular, there’s a vital discussion about the causes of the UK’s inequality, which suggests that cuts in benefit rates played a major part. The policy prescriptions in the main report says that it is going to be hard to make progress on inequality without redistribution – higher taxes and benefits. And promoting social mobility is difficult if inequality is left untouched.

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Philip Pearson

Tomorrow a coalition of trade unions and environmental organisations is organising a day of action on the Financial Transaction Tax (FTT) here at the Durban centre. It follows a heavily supported letter sent to President Zuma this week, signed by the TUC among many others, urging him to show leadership in support of the FTT as one of the mechanisms for fighting climate change and poverty at COP17. “We will not accept rich countries’ excuse that the financial crisis prevents them from fulfilling their promise to deliver $100bn annually to fight climate change,” the letter says.

A big gesture is vital to unfreeze the main negotiations – the EU itself could get off the finance fence and call its finance Ministers to order and commit the financial flows promised so easily in Cancun. Will the UK take the lead?

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