Nicola Smith
I have a blog post up at the Huffington Post questioning the Government’s response to rising unemployment.
Nicola Smith's Archive — Page 2
Nicola Smith
I’m Head of the Economic and Social Affairs Department at the TUC. I also represent the TUC on the Social Security Advisory Committee. My posts may therefore range from the environment to the welfare state via macro-economic policy but will inevitably provide more detail in some areas than others. In my previous roles I specialised in labour market policy and coordinated the work of the Commission on Vulnerable Employment (CoVE). Before joining the TUC I worked in research and policy roles for Barnardo’s, the Children and Young People’s Unit at the old DfES and the Centre for Economic and Social Inclusion.
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Nicola Smith
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Nicola Smith
In response to the news that 80,000 people have applied for 18,000 temporary Christmas jobs at Royal Mail Chris Grayling MP (Minister for Employment) has helpfully told unemployed people that:
Now is a great time to apply for one of the tens of thousands of Christmas jobs which are being advertised. Temporary work gives you an idea of the kind of career you might want, looks good on your CV and also gives you something to talk about in job interviews. It can even lead to more permanent employment.
These comments appear to indicate that Chris Grayling thinks many unemployed people might hesistate to apply for jobs, or are not aware that being in work looks good on their CV. But he needn’t have worried – miraculously 80,000 people had already taken action before he dispensed his advice. It’s therefore unfortunate that 62,000 of them (77%) will find they are unsuccessful.
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Nicola Smith
It’s no secret that the recovery is on the rocks. Growth of 0.1 per cent over nine months and the highest unemployment levels in 17 years is nothing to shout home about, and with global demand slowing sharply and the crisis in the Eurozone still unresolved the future direction of the UK economy is looking increasingly uncertain. With the UK recovery still one of the weakest in the developed world (as well as being the slowest on record) we are still only 2.8 percentage points off our recessionary slump.
Given this challenging outlook it is perhaps no surprise that debate about the causes of our economic stagnation is raging. While the Government maintains that the Eurozone is to blame the evidence is fairly convincing that our problems significantly pre-date its difficulties. But the argument doesn’t stop there – the second question is whether the Government’s spending cuts can legitimately be blamed for our current mess.
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Labour market
Is David Cameron right to claim that women’s employment rates are higher than May 2010?
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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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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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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Nicola Smith
Policy Exchange have recently taken to making a widely reported claim that “recent research has suggested that Jobseekers Allowance (JSA) claimants spend as little as eight minutes a day searching for work.” But is it true?
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Nicola Smith
New TUC analysis (admittedly published several weeks ago – but time has been tight!) shows that women are set for a tough time in the labour market. Across the UK more women than men work in the public sector, and it turns out that 34% of women who are employed (around 4,650,000 women) are in public sector jobs compared to 17% of employed men (around 2,600,000)*. In some regions female unemployment is even more concentrated in public sector employment: 42% of employed women in Northern Ireland, 37% in the North West and 36% in Yorkshire are in public sector jobs. Given 110,000 public sector jobs were lost in the second quarter (over five times more than the OBR forecast anticipated would be lost over the entire financial year) if job losses continue at even half this rate women are set to take a considerable hit.
But our key finding is that over the last decade the public sector has been responsible for the vast majority of net female jobs growth (84%), whereas for men it has only created 39% of net new jobs. Not only do women look set to lose a lot of work, but it’s far from clear where they will find new jobs.
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Nicola Smith
For now, debate about the 50p tax rate has died down. But the infamous ‘letter from economists‘ calling for it to be scrapped sounded the starting gun in the battle for public opinion over the rates’ retention (a battle which, incidentally, You Gov finds those who want it kept are winning).
As the issue seems likely to boomerang back into public debate before long, I thought I would set out the arguments that I deployed when making the case for it to be kept. There are probably many others – please let me know!
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Nicola Smith
In response to the terrible news that BAE systems is cutting 3,000 jobs across the country, with many more set to be lost in associated supply chains, the local Conservative MP (who I am fairly sure was Mark Menzies, but wasn’t quite awake enough to catch) hit the airwaves this morning emphasising the importance of creating good jobs to replace the skilled employment opportunities that we now know are set to be lost, and asking for a mini-enterprise zone to be set up in the local area.
Leaving aside the fact that there is little evidence that enterprise zones will work (and that the Government’s own job creation targets for them are extremely low), his sentiments will be shared by many – the importance for our future economic capacity, and for the future livelihoods of BAE’s workers, of enabling those facing redundancy to move back not simply into employment, but employment which makes best use of their skills and pays them a fair wage, is self-evident.
But the facts are stark. Despite much talk about re-balancing manufacturing has still failed to buck the trend of the last 30 years and continues to show net job losses rather than gains, with employment levels down 11,000 over the last quarter and by around 1.5 million over the last decade.
