Britain: Record rise in unemployment to over 2 million

[Hannah Bell]

Unemployment in the United Kingdom rose by a record amount last month. The numbers claiming unemployment benefit increased by 138,400 in February, the largest monthly increase since records began in 1971 and far higher than had been predicted. The previous record high was 118,000, reached in the recession of 1991

Over the last year the number of people officially claiming benefits has increased by nearly 600,000 to a total of 1.4 million, whereas the wider International Labour Organisation measure of unemployment rose to 2.029 million, the highest since Labour came to power in 1997. At the same time yearly earnings are now declining, with January pay levels 0.2 percent lower than a year ago. This brings the unemployment rate to 6.5 percent...

The response of the financial oligarchy was spelt out in last week's Economist. In a piece entitled "Preparing for Prosperity" they explain that the growing public sector debt means "a squeeze is overdue". Brown's proposed "reforms" to the public sector are completely inadequate, the article said. "What this heralds is a clampdown on government spending that will reshape the public services far more fundamentally than the prime minister's innocuous reform."

In the leading article "The jobs crisis", the Economist said that while government assistance to corporations to keep workers in jobs may be considered to sustain economic demand in the short term, "Over the next couple of years, politicians will have to perform a difficult policy U-turn; for, in the long term, they need flexible labour markets. That will mean abolishing job-subsidy programmes, taking away protected workers' privileges and making it easier for businesses to restructure by laying people off."

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/mar2009/ukec-m21.shtml