Comments on: This depression is the longest in modern history, so why is the economy still creating jobs?

By: LabanTall

LabanTall — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 14:27:00 +0000

Zero hour contracts. Several hundred thousand people now on them, McDonalds workers, supermarket staff, care workers, factory hands.

People on them are “employed” even if they only do 3 hours a week.

By: David Lindsay

David Lindsay — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 22:34:00 +0000

All aboard the Triple Dip. Whereas there was no recession at all in the United Kingdom on the day of the 2010 General Election. The IMF is knocking at the door of the worst Chancellor ever. Ever, ever, ever.

But hope is at hand. Ed Balls on The World at One sounded like Peter Shore, joining with the unions to exhort the listeners to “Buy British”.

If there were a conservative, Tory party, then it would be saying the same thing. Perhaps there is? There is certainly a party for which conservative, Tory people can, should, and in huge numbers increasingly do vote.

One Nation, indeed.

By: Newsbot9

Newsbot9 — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 18:41:00 +0000

In reply to Ash. They're still generating a fraction of the revenue for the government. That is, someone working 0.5 time is generating perhaps 0.2 of the revenue of a full job. Maybe.

By: Ash

Ash — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 17:47:00 +0000

In reply to Roy Boffy. For that to happen, though, the amount newly employed workers were receiving in Tax Credits would have to exceed the amount they had been receiving in out-of-work benefits *plus* the amount of extra revenue they were paying to the government through all forms of taxation (direct and indirect) *plus* the amount of extra revenue generated by knock-on effects of their employment such as their employer making more money, them spending more in local shops, etc. So it's not a very likely scenario.

By: Roy Boffy

Roy Boffy — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 17:10:00 +0000

One other issue is how far these additional jobs are subsidised by the State via Working Tax Credit – which they likely are if they are minimum wage and/ or part-time. It would be truly, and deliciously, ironic if the increase in employment was concurrently increasing the deficit!

By: Newsbot9

Newsbot9 — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 16:20:00 +0000

In reply to LB.

Nope, stop confusing your plans with the Governments.

“Competition” which reduces GDP and lowers wages is bad. But you won’t admit that. You’re determined to do more damage, so your shares will go up slightly quicker!

By: Newsbot9

Newsbot9 — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 16:19:00 +0000

In reply to Ash. No, because it is getting it from falling wages in the rest of the economy.

By: Redshift1

Redshift1 — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 16:05:00 +0000

There are two other massive points:-

1) The increase in part-time work, employing greater numbers of people but for less hours.
2) People on aspects of the work programme not being included in unemployment figures.

By: Ash

Ash — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 15:55:00 +0000

“Much of the GDP fall over the last year or so occurred in sectors like manufacturing, which contracted by -1.8%, and mining and quarrying, which fell by an astonishing 11%… This is in contrast to UK services, which have been holding up pretty well over the last year in terms of economic output. Retail, wholesale and hospitality managed 0.7% growth in 2012; business services and finance 1.3%.”

Two things strike me about this:

1 – so much for ‘rebalancing’ the economy away from financial services and towards manufacturing.

2 – if the financial services sector is more able to bounce back from the banking crisis than we thought, have we overestimated the size of the structural deficit? (Wasn’t the belief that there’s a large structural deficit based on the assumption that the financial services sector in particular had seen a permanent loss of capacity?)

By: LB

LB — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 14:29:00 +0000

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But Berlin remains highly sceptical of the Tories’ tactics and is likely to fight hard against any attempt by Cameron to give Britain a major competitive advantage in the single market.
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Think it through. If the UK gets a advantage by getting out of parts of EU legislation, that legislation is making the EU uncompetitive. We live in a world bigger than the EU, and here’s the admission that the EU is causing damage.

Merkel has it wrong. They should be looking at giving all EU countries an advantage, rather than causing damage.

Just shows you what the EU and Governments get up to which is destroy jobs.