Working 9-5 what a way to make a living

Hurrah! For the second quarter in a row unemployment in the UK has fallen. Not by very much (3,000), but a fall nonetheless.


Presuming that unemployment has already peaked, it is interesting to understand why it never reached the levels some expected. Most economists predicted that unemployment would rise to over 3 million, but in reality the number did not go over 2.5 million.

The Government claims that the many policies they put in place over the course of the recession - from increased support to job seekers to the car scrappage scheme to VAT cuts to keep demand for goods up - all helped employers hang onto their staff. It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to say how many jobs were saved by each initiative but the work of Job Centre Plus (JCP) and the new back to work schemes are often cited as crucial.

Today, the Conservative’s claimed that JCP was under staffed and left without enough resources to cope with the increased number of jobseekers. They state that JCP’s were still being closed in 2008, when unemployment began to grow, and that this placed a large burden on the system. Labour, meanwhile, accuse the Tories of painting a one sided picture- and further accuse them of opposing the extra £5bn that the Government invested in JCP services.

What is clear is that the number of people losing their jobs was not as high as feared. However, this has left many people ‘under-employed’- i.e. working fewer hours than they would like or in a lower skilled job than they were trained for. The next Government will have to support these people to boost the UK’s productivity, and JCP will be a key part of this.


So who do you think would do the best job?



Poli-Chick xx