Guest 645- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 4,463
#1
One of the coalition's key assumptions on the economy is based on flawed maths, according to think tank the New Economics Foundation in a new report called Filling the Jobs Gap. The government is banking on the private sector to create jobs to offset the loss of employment in the public sector.
To encourage this, Chancellor George Osborne introduced an employers' National Insurance waiver for new businesses outside London and the south east. But NEF says: "The likely job creation to be created from such a tax break is not even close to the size of the current jobs gap."
The jobs gap is the difference between the size of the population of working age and the number of jobs available. In the report, subtitled Why enterprise-based regeneration isn't working, NEF found that for every 100 people able to work in the north east, there are only 72 jobs. In the south east there are 86 jobs for every 100 people able to work. Across England as a whole the jobs gap is currently 5.3 million.
NEF says it is "totally unrealistic" to expect the private sector to create that number of jobs just by offering a temporary NI waiver. Entrepreneurs are much more likely to start businesses in parts of the country that are growing rapidly and where there is strong consumer demand.
Dr Faiza Shaheen, who wrote the report, said: "While the government's Office of Budget Responsibility optimistically forecasts that 1.3 million new jobs are likely to be created by 2014, our research shows that the private sector is highly unlikely to emerge and absorb those pushed out of the public sector, particularly in already deprived areas."
Writing on the Left Foot Forward blog a great favourite of mine, she added: "In the short term, the Government must at least consider the spatial impacts of any austerity measures, protecting jobs in those areas where a private sector is unlikely to emerge. If they fail to do this, cuts now are likely to be counterproductive."
NEF proposes several measures for the Government to implement.
•Protect the most deprived areas from public sector cuts.
•Extend the NI waiver to firms in London and the south east that want to invest in deprived areas
•Develop an industrial policy targeting deprived areas with manufacturing in the renewable energy and green jobs sector
•Introduce more highly-focussed, longer-term programmes to support enterprises in deprived areas.
It seems unlikely this Government will listen to any of this. The Conservatives are wedded to an ideological assumption that the private sector can and should step in to provide when the state is rolled back. And the Lib Dems will go along with it to stay in power.
We are in the midst of a vast experiment to see if the ideological assumption works. Just as we were in the 1980s when the Thatcher government insisted something called 'trickle-down would work. It didn't. Let's hope the results are not as disastrous as they were then.
Marek
I think therefore I am (not a Tory supporter)
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
#2
Mark - you gave the game away referring to the Left Foot Forward Blog.... We will see the left nit pick away but you cannot get away from some simple facts:
Spending must be cut and that does involve job losses
The only jobs that will contribute to, rather than detract from, the public coffers are private sector jobs.
There is only one way out of the mess and that through private sector growth and private sector employment.
The left remain in denial and iving in a fantasy land.
Incidentally, what Mrs T did, did work, it did achieve private sector growth and new prosperity for this country. It was the basis for the falling unemployment inherted by Labour in 1997 - which their idiotic spendthrift economics suffocated and reversed.
Ross Miller
- Location: London Road, Dover
- Registered: 17 Sep 2008
- Posts: 3,709
#3
Barry, surely the key point being made is that the measures being offered by the government to encourage private sector jobs growth are insufficient to make any real difference to the jobless total.
In my opinion the exclusion of London and the South East from the NI measures makes no sense, particularly as this is where many of the public sector jobs will be shed.
The government does need to target what funds it has available for supporting apprenticeships and industrial education on the more blighted parts of the country to encourage additional job creation and longer term inwards investment through the creation of a skilled workforce, There is nothing wrong with government pump priming regional economies in this way, particularly as it ticks so many boxes in the short to medium term - gets people in to education, grows a skilled workforce, reduces benefit demand, generates inward investment, generates tax revenues etc. etc.
"Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today." - James Dean
"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength,
While loving someone deeply gives you courage" - Laozi
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
#4
Ross - I do not disagree with what you are saying. The NI proposals should be extended nationwide and we in the Chamber have and are making representations to that effect. Likewise it is sensible to divert money away from Unis to other forms of work related education as far too many have been going to Uni. At the end of the day you have too look at what business needs, lower taxes (being implemented) and less interference and red tape (also being dealt with).
No end of left wing pressure groups and think tanks will keep popping up with their own angle and scenarios but no matter what the government does they will still be able to produce their statistical projections to prove whatever they want to prove.
At the end of the day the facts we know are that the government spends £4 for every £3 it collects. It does not take a genius to know that has to be corrected and the sooner it is in balance the better. That measn spending less and cutting government functions and jobs have to be a part of that. It also does not take a genius to know that it is the private sector that will have to take the strain and must be allowed the freedom to do its job.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
#5
unfortunately this government just like the last one seems to think that we are all rich in the south east full stop.
maybe if they left their offices and limousines and looked closely at places they might feel differently.
Ross Miller- Location: London Road, Dover
- Registered: 17 Sep 2008
- Posts: 3,709
#6
As always with politics; whilst all sides of the political divide agree (broadly) on what the problem is; you will invariably end up with as many, if not more, proposed solutions as there are political parties. Some of these will be unworkable, some will make matters worse not better, many will partially solve the problem and very few if any will totally fix the problem. The art of consensus politics, is surely to garner those solutions that partially solve the problem and meld the best ones into a policy that fixes most if not all of the problem. After all no-one person or party has a monopoly on being correct.
"Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today." - James Dean
"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength,
While loving someone deeply gives you courage" - Laozi
#7
Don't forget the Third Sector - waiting in the wings to do a better and more cost effective job that the public sector could dream of.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
#8
lost me bern, what is the third sector?
#9
Howard,
Charity, voluntary, not for profit etc.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
#10
of course, david is looking for them to do a lot of the work of the current public sector.
i forgot all about the election spiel.
Guest 700- Registered: 11 Jun 2010
- Posts: 2,868
#11
Charitable institutions or individual persons have always given of their time and money to help public works and needy causes, perhaps we should re-start a Dover Philanthropic Society (the old one was formed in 1838 - I don't know what happened to it)
volunteers are usually 90% dependable and do a good job. I suppose what is needed is the 'Wartime spirit' of economy, helping the community and preventing waste.
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Lincolnshire Born and Bred